


down to the deep

by kagamiwa



Category: EXO (Band), f(x)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Family, Friendship, Pacific Rim AU, So much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-28
Updated: 2017-06-28
Packaged: 2018-11-20 06:00:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 21,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11329968
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kagamiwa/pseuds/kagamiwa
Summary: Soojung buries her memories in the Drift. Kim Jongin digs them back up.





	1. eyes like the sun

**Author's Note:**

> originally posted as [bones, sinking like stones](http://krysandkai.livejournal.com/4923.html)

 

 

 **2022, SEPTEMBER 1. INCHEON SHATTERDOME.**  
She wakes to the alarm blaring in her ears, her room bathed in a red glow that continually fades in and out, in and out, like the rhythmic rocking of waves. For a moment Soojung lies still in bed, staring at the ceiling. She thinks she’s still dreaming, still out in the middle of the East China Sea, but then her heart clenches and the bile rises in the back of her throat and she knows all too well that the despair rising in her gut is all too familiar for this to be a dream.

She sits up too fast, clutching a hand to her head and tangling her fingers in her hair as the world spins around her. Booted feet clang in harried steps on the metal grates outside her room, frenzied yells echoing down the corridor. On mornings – nights – like these, Soojung has half a mind to burrow back down under the covers and try to swallow back the grief that threatens to drown her. The other half of her mind knows that she has to be down at LOCCENT to ask the perfunctory question (“Is there anything I can do?”) and hear the same unspoken answer every time (“There isn’t much you can do alone.”).

She reaches out for her clock, her mind still in a haze, and knocks it over. Soojung curses and falls back against the pillow while she waits for the blood to stop rushing to her head. She stares at the wall opposite her, watches the red light splash across the steel cladding in regular spurts. They’re still yelling outside.

_Crash Nebula report to Bay 6, level A-45. Crash Nebula report to Bay 6, level A-45._

One day she’ll hear her own name echoing down the corridor again, hear it blared through loudspeakers. One day she’ll hear the slight panic that always tinges the end of her name as it crackles into her room. One day. That day is not today. Soojung closes her eyes, but sleep doesn’t come so easily these days. Minutes pass. The voices outside her room subside but the alarm is still ringing. _They need to work on their response time_ , she thinks almost bitterly.

Finally she throws back the covers, buries the despair under a mantra of _you’re okay, you’re okay, you’re okay_ and pulls on a military jacket before heading out the door.

 

 

 

Mission control is a mess. Yixing is typing furiously at his computer as Marshall Song stands tensely behind him, her hands clasped behind her stick straight back. She glances at Soojung when she enters and nods her head slightly in greeting. Soojung nods back. “Where the hell are they?” Yixing mutters, then sighs with apparent relief when a red light flashes on the screen – another beeping signal among the others that adorn his desktop. Soojung wonders how anyone can find anything under the mess of blinking lights and buttons, but as Yixing sweeps a hand through his hair and turns around, she figures that if there’s anyone who can make sense of chaos, it would be Yixing.

“They’re ready, ma’am,” he looks up at Marshall Song. “Good morning, Soojung.” He smiles and extends his wrist to her in their daily ritual. She stares at his watch. 3.15am. She’d only fallen asleep 2 hours before. No wonder.

“Morning,” she manages with a grimace.

“Engage drop, Mr. Zhang,” Marshall Song says.

Yixing turns back to his screen. “Engaging drop, ma’am. Marshall Victoria Song on deck, securing the Conn Pod, prepare for drop.” His fingers are dancing across the keyboard. Soojung has seen him do this a million times beforehand, but every time she does her respect for Yixing grows just a little more. If there is anyone who would be the human epitome of the calm in the storm, it would be J-Tech Chief LOCCENT Officer Zhang Yixing. “Alright, Crash Nebula, prepare for neural handshake.” Pause. Yixing stretches. “Neural handshake established. Let’s go, guys. Deploying to Tianjin in 3, 2, 1.”

While waiting for Crash Nebula to get to its destination (“Approximately 25 minutes, if you guys had woken up earlier you’d probably be there by now.”), Yixing stretches again, looks up more information on his screen, then nods to himself with satisfaction. “Neural handshake strong and holding.” He scoops up the large paper cup sitting by his side and hands it behind him to Soojung without looking away from the screen. “Have a drink. You look like you need a wake-up call.”

Soojung takes a sip and makes a face. “Why the hell are you drinking cold bubble tea at 3.30 in the morning?” she scrunches up her nose.

“Woke you up though, didn’t it?” Yixing replies with a light laugh. “Nothing like chewing on plastic balls to get your mind working at a time like this. Jinri always used to say that I was a total weirdo for eating crap like that, but she could never resist when I made a cup for her.”

Soojung feels the grief rising in her throat again, and she hastily takes another sip to push it back down. She ends up choking on one of his stupid little tapioca pearls, hastily blinking back tears. She tells herself that it’s the choking making her eyes well up.

“Hey, don’t go dying on me, Soojung.” Yixing's tone is still light. Soojung hears the unspoken too echo around the room.

“Mr. Zhang,” Victoria glowers slightly.

“Sorry ma’am,” Yixing hunkers down again, but Soojung catches the slight grin still playing on his lips. “Neural handshake still going strong. All systems are go. Your orders, Marshall?”

Victoria bends over the microphone. “Ladies, your orders. Tonight you are to just hold the miracle mile off Tianjin. It’s a category 2, weighing in at 2,300 tons. Codename: Onyang. Now, we don’t want to be careless just because it’s a category 2, alright? Stay vigilant.” Her voice is strong, firm, as always. Soojung has always liked that about Marshall Song.

“Yes, ma’am,” comes a female voice, girlish and high. “Sorry for the delay Marshall, Hyuna always had a problem with sleeping through alarms,” adds another voice, lower and more mischievous, but female nonetheless.

“This is not the time for jokes, Miss Liu,” Victoria doesn’t even twitch.

A chuckle. “Roger that, Marshall. Crash Nebula moving out!” The connection cuts off. Victoria looks over at Soojung.

“She isn’t my responsibility anymore,” Soojung cuts in before she can say anything, her arms crossed over her chest. Victoria gives her a slight smile before resuming her watch over Yixing’s shoulder. Soojung doesn’t like the all too familiar look on her face.

 

 

 

It only takes an hour for Crash Nebula to bring Onyang to its knees, 12 miles away from the coastline. It’s a little too close for comfort for all of them, and Soojung tries to convince herself that this is for the best, that this what they all need when Victoria beckons to her after letting Nebula know that the Jumphawks are on their way to bring them back to the Shatterdome. The clock resets. Another Kaiju turned into food for the fishes. Life goes on.

“Miss Jung,” Victoria starts as Soojung follows her out into the corridor. “I’m sure that what I am about to tell you will come as no surprise.” Soojung tries to keep her face as neutral as possible despite the dull ache in her chest. _Here it comes again._ “So far we’ve been successful in defending the area under our jurisdiction with Crash Nebula, but I’ve come to the decision that Nebula may not be enough anymore. Kaiju attacks are increasing, and this category 2 tonight was a rare - and perhaps, lucky - event.” Marshall Song pinches the bridge of her nose and sighs.

“Marshall, Hyuna’s inability to wake up isn’t such a hard problem to fix,” Soojung quips. “We just need to put an alarm next to her bed.”

“There already is one,” Victoria doesn’t waver. “But that’s beside the point. It’s time. Be in the Kwoon tomorrow at 0800 hours sharp. Mr. Kang thinks this one will be perfect for you.”

“They’re always perfect for me,” Soojung says, but Marshall Song is already striding back into mission control. "They're always perfect for me," she repeats under her breath as she watches the Marshall's retreating back.

 

 

 

Soojung dreams of water flooding into her room. She thrashes in her bed, but her arms and legs are tied down. She looks up at her wrists as the water rises up over her head, devouring every inch of her body. Her chains are IV drips. She opens her mouth in a voiceless underwater scream, and feels the water filling her lungs. A moment of desperation, then resignation. _This is how I die_. She watches the last of her air bubbles escape to the surface. It's eerily calm in the black water.

Arms. An embrace around her shoulders. Warm. Her skin is cold. His skin is warm. She looks back. Looks into the rotting face of a dark haired boy who once had eyes like the sun. He lifts a decomposing hand - white, white like death -, places it over her nose. Drags her down into the deep amidst ghostly whispers of unfinished _I love you_ s and shamed _I'm sorry_ s.

Soojung wakes up drenched in cold sweat. She thinks it might be the fragments of her nightmare still clinging to her, reminding her that this is how she died.

 

 

 

His name is Kim Jongin. Taller than her, healthy tan skin, muscular in the lean sort of way that Soojung has seen one too many times before. She makes a remark to Minhyuk about feeding his trainees right, but he merely scoffs and waves it off. Soojung is used to it. She’s used to this procedure, of staring a complete stranger in the face and knowing that this whole stint in the Kwoon combat room is just a matter of protocol because if there’s anything Soojung is good at, it’s staring a complete stranger in the face and knowing exactly how to be their partner.

“You and I both know I don’t need to be here,” she mutters to Minhyuk as Kim Jongin removes his standard-issue army boots and places them at the side of the mat. There is no one else in line with him, though a small crowd has gathered behind him at the other end of the Kwoon. Soojung spots Amber leaning against the doorframe and returns a nod when she wiggles her fingers at her.

“Well, formalities and all that, you know?” Minhyuk shrugs. Soojung leans slightly towards him and peers at the clipboard in his hands; just one name printed on the list, just as she suspected. Minhyuk catches her looking and moves the clipboard away with a slight frown. “You ready to go?”

Soojung hears footsteps behind her and then Marshall Song is beside her, hands behind her back. “Everything ready, Mr. Kang?” she asks. Minhyuk bows slightly before nodding. “And not a minute too soon, Marshall,” he adds with a slight smile as he glances at the clock. 8am sharp. Victoria always had impeccable timing.

“Let’s go, Miss Jung,” Victoria says lightheartedly, and Soojung closes her eyes, feels herself breathe, and loses herself for a few seconds in the darkness. “Miss Jung.” Soojung opens her eyes. She shrugs off her jacket and undoes the laces of her boots before stepping on to the blue mat set in the middle of the Kwoon. It feels familiar under her feet, but it doesn’t feel like home. She feels as though she’s stepping on water, and any minute now she’ll lose her footing and fall in and drown.

“Artemis Fury co-pilot candidate 1 Kim Jongin,” Minhyuk announces as she twirls her hanbo in her hands, familiarizing herself with the feel of it. He steps forward, and their eyes meet. Full lips and a stare that goes straight through her - but it doesn’t faze her one bit. She can see the steely will behind his eyes, but none of it matters because she already knows how this will end.

He bows first. His movements are sharp, his bow executed in a manner both graceful and powerful, and she feels something stir in her gut as she clicks her heels together and bows back. When they straighten and lock eyes again, Jongin smirks slightly. “I won’t hold back with you, _sunbaenim_ ,” he tells her in a voice deeper than she expected, and the word feels almost foreign to her ears now. English is the standard mode of conversation even in the Incheon Shatterdome, and the last time she’d spoken Korean with anyone was...

“Good,” she twirls her hanbo around and locks it in at her side. “Then I expect you to keep up.” She’s aware of the little twinge of nervousness in the base of her spine, that her heart is pounding harder with every passing second. It’s been two years since she’d last done this with a stranger, and she’s suddenly afraid. Afraid of working so hard to gather her life back into her hands again only to have it pulled out and scattered into the ocean by a monster. By a machine. She’s always found it difficult to distinguish between the two.

She half expects Jongin to be insulted by her little quip, but he smiles instead. And Soojung falls with a great splash into the water.

_He has eyes like the sun._

Her breathing is shallow, the pain in her chest choking her, but Minhyuk is calling for the start of the trial and everything is blurring in front of her eyes. She’s dimly aware of Jongin sliding into his stance, his hanbo held upright at chest level, but she doesn’t register until he smacks her on the arm. It knocks her out of her trance, and she snaps her head to look at him. He’s not smiling anymore, but his eyes still carry that trace of a sunny smirk behind them. She swallows.

“1 - 0.”

“Concentrate, Soojung!” Amber yells from behind Jongin, and Soojung grits her teeth before twisting Jongin’s staff out of the way with her own without warning and aiming the point of it at his neck. She cocks her head at him and manages a slight smirk. “Better watch yourself,” she narrows her eyes slightly at him.

“1 - 1.”

“So you really are as good as they say,” Jongin says. The next second he’s backed away, his staff at his chest again. His eyes betray nothing. “Let’s go, _sunbaenim_.”

Soojung takes a deep breath, crouching into stance. She taps the tip of her hanbo against the floor twice before bringing it back up and looking at him. “For real this time,” she tells him, and then she charges.

 

 

 

Jongin doesn't yield the next point as easily, and she gives him the next one after a lengthy rally. He is fast, much faster than her, and his thin frame betrays the hidden strength that lies behind each blow but Soojung finds his movements easy to read. Not easy enough to keep herself from losing points though, as Jongin catches her foot with his when she twirls away from him, making her fall backwards on to the mat. He thrusts his hanbo at her, falling short of hitting her in the throat.

“4 - 4.”

Soojung doesn't have to look at Minhyuk to see the bewildered look on his face. She can hear it in his voice, she can feel the same feeling running through her bones. She hasn’t had such a close match with anyone in years, and the sudden realization that she might lose has sparked an adrenaline rush that leaves her breathless.

But how can Minhyuk know that the last time she felt such adrenaline pumping through her veins was the first time she and Sooyeon found out they were Drift compatible?

This. This nagging feeling in the back of her brain - this dull throb forcing her to remember something that she just can't pull to the surface - she knows what this is now. Her eyes meet Jongin’s as he pulls her to her feet and slides back into stance for the final round. He smiles again, and the slow throb quickens in her chest.

This isn't just Drift compatibility. This is something entirely different.

 

 

 

 

 **2021, MARCH 23. INCHEON SHATTERDOME.**  
“Scalpel.”

Soojung does a quick scan of the tools on the tray in front of her; there are 5 scalpels of different sizes and her hands hover over each. “Uhh…” she starts.

“The one on the far left,” Sunyoung barely glances over, her hands wrist-deep in the Kaiju sample on the operating table in front of them. Soojung knows she fought hard for this one; she had heard extensively from Jongdae about how Sunyoung went down to the Seoul Bone Slums and kicked some illegal Kaiju organ dealer butt (and Jongdae would know all too well how that feels).

“You know, this is what the autopsy chamber is for,” she ventures as she hands Sunyoung the smallest scalpel.

Sunyoung smiles through her biohazard visor as she extracts one blue-slime covered hand and takes the tool. “I see all your time spent in here hasn't been a complete waste,” she remarks. “Anyway,” she continues as she slices at something inside the Kaiju organ. “If you don't do these things hands-on you'll never understand anything. Think of it as fighting inside a Jaeger. You don't know how it works until you're actually in it, right?”

“I guess,” Soojung mutters.

“Sorry,” Sunyoung puts down the scalpel. “I didn't mean to bring it up.” She covers one of Soojung’s gloved hands, smearing Kaiju Blue all over it. “You're doing better though, aren't you? I'm sure being down here with me must be so boring you’re almost brain dead by now.” She smiles. “Now I get why you spend so much time with me.”

Soojung forces a laugh. “Actually I'm just down here to escape Jonghyun,” she shrugs. A half truth. “And it is somewhat therapeutic down here, being surrounded by things that can still try to kill me even when they're dead.” She looks around the large room, at the preserved Kaiju parts floating in their containers, at the large pipes and wires running haphazardly across the floor. She can name each machine and is sometimes even allowed to monitor them when everyone goes on lunch break, but she still doesn't know the names to any of the organs. Or she doesn't want to. Kaiju hearts look nothing like her own, but she hasn’t seen her own in a while anyway. Sunyoung gives her one last long look before going back to her work.

“You'll be alright,” she says quietly. “You’ve beaten them seven times, haven't you? You can beat this. Scalpel.” She smiles. “The biggest one this time.”

 

 

 

“You know you're not supposed to be down there,” Minhyuk frowns when she shows up at the Kwoon three minutes late. “K-Science is for _scientists_ , not unstable Jaeger pilots with nowhere to go.” Soojung feels the pinch, but she doesn't say anything. Bluntness has always been one of Minhyuk’s most defining features, and while she's used to it, it still acts as a good enough motivator for her to give her all when she helps him trial run new routines to teach to the Jaeger Academy cadets.

“The Kwoon is for _Fightmasters_ , not ex-Jaeger pilots with nothing left to do,” she jabs back, and Minhyuk scoffs.

“Okay, the last half hurt but the first part didn't because I _am_ a Fightmaster,” he pats his heart and pretends to look hurt. “I might be your ex-co pilot but you should be grateful that I'm at least still here.”

There's a long, pregnant pause where Soojung alternates between the pain rising with the tide within her, feeling as if he’s already punched the air out of her, and wanting to hurt him, really hurt him, when he reaches out and puts his hand on her shoulder. “I didn't mean it like that,” he says, completely serious. “I didn't mean it like that at all. I'm sorry Soojung.”

Soojung tries to smile and finds that she can't. “I still see them in my nightmares,” she whispers. “I see him the minute I open my eyes in the morning. When I hear the alarm go off. When I get anywhere close to Bay 2. I see him standing there with this damn helmet under his arm, smiling at me and telling me to get ready. He's not even ready himself, and he has that tuft of hair sticking up on the back of his head that he always gets when he sleeps on his back. And he tells me to get ready, get ready. Like I'll ever be ready to have a Kaiju pull him out of my head.”

She doesn't realize she's weeping until Minhyuk pulls her into a hug, one hand on the back of her head. “You'll be alright,” he says into her crown, just like she knows he would because they are only Drift compatible and nothing else. “You’ll make it through this. You are stronger than you will ever know, Soojung.”

She desperately wants to be.

Instead, she trips him over her foot and flips him on to his back on the mat. “Don't let your guard down,” she tells him. She smiles despite the tear tracks glistening on her cheeks, despite the terrible gaping cavern in her chest where her heart used to be.

Minhyuk just sighs.

 

 

 

 **2022, SEPTEMBER 2. KWOON COMBAT ROOM.**  
“5 - 4.”

Silence. Soojung feels like she is drowning.

And then someone starts to clap, and there’s applause and a whoop of “Jongin!” before Victoria raises a hand. The noise dies away.

“Cadet Kim and Ranger Jung, report to the Conn Pod tomorrow at 10am for a test Drift.” Her voice bounces around the concrete walls, and Jongin bows. His eyes meet Soojung’s again, and he tilts his head towards her with a smile. Soojung feels the shiver run down her spine again before she turns, picks up her shoes, and walks out of the room.

“Soojung.”

Soojung keeps walking.

“Soojung!”

This time she stops, takes a deep breath to compose herself, and turns to face Amber Liu.

“What the hell was that?” Soojung can see the confusion on her face reflected in Amber’s eyes. “You could’ve taken him easily, what happened out there?”

“He was strong,” Soojung says, her first words since the start of the match. Her voice breaks. She licks her lips and tries again. “And he was fast.”

“Yes, but he was easy to read.” Amber’s hair is shorter since the last time Soojung saw her, and she can see where Hyuna had been a little heavy handed with the scissors. She tries not to imagine the two pilots of Crash Nebula spending time together, laughing and cutting each other’s hair. Doing things she hasn’t been able to do for a long time. “And your defence is second to none. No one has ever broken past your defence since....” she trails off and checks herself. “What happened?” she repeats slowly. Soojung can see in her eyes that she already knows the answer.

“Nothing happened,” she says shortly. “I lost. He beat me. He’ll be my new co-pilot and that’s all that matters. Let it go, Amber.” She turns and starts walking down the hall, her boots still in her hands, the metal grates cold under her feet. She tells herself that that is the cause of the unsettled feeling in her stomach and nothing else. Nothing else.

“Both you and I know that what you just had out there was not a fight!” Amber calls after her. “I’d hate to sound like Pentecost, but what you just had was a freaking dialogue! You can’t run away from this forever, Soojung!”

Soojung keeps walking.

 

 

 

“Hey.”

Soojung doesn’t recognize the voice as she leans against the railing of the catwalk overlooking Artemis Fury. The technicians are just putting the finishing touches to her, and it’s enough for Soojung to scream. The Jaeger looks almost exactly as it did the first time she set eyes on it 6 years ago in a different Shatterdome with a different co-pilot. It seems like a lifetime ago, but she remembers the moment as well as if it were yesterday.

She looks up and into the eyes of Kim Jongin.

She hesitates, and lowers her gaze. “Hi.” She turns back to the Jaeger. He settles himself beside her, exactly one arm’s length away. _It doesn’t matter how far away you stand_ , she thinks bitterly. _In a few hours we’ll be one and the same person._

“It’s beautiful,” Jongin breathes. “Artemis. She’s beautiful.”

“Yeah,” Soojung replies. _6 years of nothing but pain and grief, but she’s still the most beautiful Jaeger around. Not a scratch on that shiny surface. Not a single scratch._ For a second she almost feels a stab of jealousy for her Jaeger, wishes she too could hide the scars of the past 6 years beneath a new layer of paint and wax.

“I know you weren’t giving your all out there yesterday, sunbaenim,” he starts. His voice is deep, lower than befits his boyish features, and completely unfamiliar to her. It takes her a few seconds to realize that he’s speaking Korean.

“English,” she corrects him before he can say anything else. “Did the Jaeger Academy not teach you that?”

“You’re more uptight than I imagined,” he switches languages without the slightest hesitation, almost as if he was expecting the admonishment. A slight accent colours his drawl. “It’s interesting, really.”

“What is?” Soojung still doesn’t look at him.

“7 kills in 6 years, 1 of them completely solo,” Jongin says. “One of the youngest pilots in the history of this Kaiju war. Drift compatible with just about anyone, but hasn’t been able to keep a co-pilot for more than 2 years. That’s what’s interesting.” He laughs lightly. Far below them, Soojung watches sparks fly from the foot of Artemis Fury’s foot as the technicians fit a new plate to it.

“Are you mocking me?” she asks, and turns to face him. He smirks, and her heart gives a casual flutter.

“No, I’m giving you respect,” he cocks his head and examines her face. “And I just needed to give you a reason to look at me. Did anyone ever tell you you’re beautiful, _sunbaenim_?”

Soojung feels her cheeks flare, and is grateful that up here above the holding bays it is still dimly lit. She looks away. “Looks don’t matter in this game that we play,” she remarks.

“Maybe not, but it sure does help to look at something nice when you’re up against a Kaiju with a face like a pile of dogshit,” Jongin replies lightheartedly. He chuckles, and a twinge of annoyance runs up her spine. She straightens, and tosses her hair behind her head.

“Humour won’t help you when you’re out in the ocean with a Kaiju tearing you out of your drivesuit, Mr. Kim,” she takes one last look at Artemis, and narrows her eyes at her co-pilot. “You don’t know what those things are capable of, but I do. 7 kills in 6 years, 1 completely solo, just like you said. You’ll be safer not taking this lightly. I’ll see you in the Conn Pod. Don’t bring your terrible sense of humour with you.”

She leaves him staring after her as she walks away.

 

 

 

She has a new drivesuit. Black with a blue tint, red and yellow lines running through the armour like circuits. She vaguely recalls the traditional uniform of the South Korean army, and is grateful that the technicians are giving her another chance at a new life. New uniform, new co-pilot. All nice and shiny like her Jaeger. She can start all over again. She might even be able to forget.

She walks into the Conn Pod - the head of the Jaeger, somewhere she has vaguely been able to call home for the past 6 years - and breathes in. Everything is familiar, yet terrifyingly unfamiliar. Soon she’ll be strapped into place, a stranger beside her. Another stranger. A stranger with eyes like the sun. She breathes out, opens her eyes, and flicks a switch on the control panel. “Setting harness for test mode. Waiting for second pilot.” The two harnesses lower themselves into place behind her. She sighs.

“You okay, Soojung?” Yixing’s voice crackles through the speaker. “Still too early for you, huh?”

“I could do with some of your bubble tea,” she admits. The circuitry suit under her drivesuit is skin-tight, and she feels a little short of breath. “Maybe a good sugar rush would be enough to get me through this test dive.”

“You’ll be fine.” Yixing’s voice is calm, comforting. “You’ve always been fine before this. Don’t think too much about it, okay?”

 _Two pilots on board_ , says the AI, and Soojung hears the clumping of heavy boots on the floor.

“These suits are kinda flashy, don’t you think?” Jongin appears to her right, his helmet wedged under his arm. His eyes are slightly bagged and his hair is tousled, but Soojung has to admit that she has never seen anyone fit into a drivesuit as well as Kim Jongin does. She wills herself to keep the admiration from showing on her face. “Good morning,” he says to her carefully. His eyes are apologetic.

“Good morning,” she gives him a clipped nod. “Ready, Yixing?”

“Ready when you are,” Yixing replies. She cuts off the connection and steps into the command platform, her feet locking securely into place as a technician checks and secures her harness. The HUDs appear before their eyes, and Soojung glances over to see Jongin looking around in awe as she checks the readings and flicks various switches into place.

_Pilots on board and ready to connect._

“Establish the connection,” comes Victoria’s clear firm voice.

“Initiating neural handshake…” Yixing replies.

“Look,” Soojung turns to Jongin. He looks at her. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier this morning, but I meant it. In a few minutes you’ll see why I’m so uptight about everything and I hope you’ll understand. This isn’t a simulator, this is the real deal. You know about the rabbit, right?”

Jongin nods. “Random Access Brain Impulse Triggers.”

“Good,” she says. “Whatever you do, don’t chase the rabbit. Clear your mind. Just let the memories flow past, got it?”

“Got it.” For a second she thinks she sees a hint of nervousness in his face, but the HUDs reflect in his visor, and then it’s gone. “See you in the Drift.” And this time she does manage to smile, a small one made to reassure him as Artemis whirs to life beneath their feet. She thinks she sees him smile back. She isn’t sure.

_Neural handshake initiating._

 

 

 

The Drift is silence.

Memories flow fast in the Drift, hers intertwining with Jongin’s, the both of them watching their own melded lives playing out before them. Two little boys playing together on the concrete banks of a river, two little girls peeking out of the window of an aeroplane. A little girl crying as an older one shields her, explosions and sparks showering the sky outside their window.The massive decaying lung cavity of a Kaiju, the tents beginning to spring up alongside the bones. A boy with a smile like the end of the world. That same boy coughing up blue vapor, his skin tinged blue, collapsing to the ground and never moving again. An older girl hooked up to IV drips, her hand nothing more than brittle bones and bruised and skin. A girl with the face of a princess, not yet a queen.

_“Let’s go save the world.”_

A burning jet exploding against the giant scaly clawed hand of a Kaiju. A boy with eyes like the sun. Silver air bubbles escaping into ink black water.

Silence.

Soojung keeps her mind as clear as possible - she has done this a thousand times, and every time it gets harder and harder - and with a final surge that has the both of them jolting out of balance, she knows that, once again, this Drift has been a success.

 _Right hemisphere calibrated_. Jongin lifts his right arm. Soojung lifts her right arm simultaneously

 _Left hemisphere calibrated._ Soojung lifts her left arm. Jongin lifts his left arm simultaneously.

_Ready to activate the Jaeger. Pilot to Jaeger connection complete._

Success.

Soojung breathes.

 

 

 

Everything goes fine until Jongin turns to her right after they finish calibrating and smiles at her. And Soojung remembers another boy she used to know with the same eyes when he smiled, who was the first to hold her hand and tell her he loved her. Silver air bubbles dissipating into inky black water. The last breath of air expelling from her lungs.

The pain in her head sends her reeling as she lurches, grief rising in her throat. She thinks she vaguely hears alarms, hears the AI repeating _Pilot out of alignment, code red_ , but everything seems so far away, like a far off memory.

“Soojung!” someone is saying, a low voice that still isn’t familiar to her, and she shouldn’t be here, she shouldn’t be, but the sky is pitch black and there are sirens blaring in her ears, and her drivesuit is white with red and blue accents and there is a boy she loves with eyes like the sun smiling at her from his place in the harness beside her.

 

 

 

 


	2. silver bubbles rising

 

 **2021, JULY 23. INCHEON SHATTERDOME.**  
He’s just pushed up her up against the wall when the alarm starts ringing and his room is bathed in a blinking red glow. For a second they hold their breaths, hoping for a false alarm, but they both know that false alarms hardly ever happen in their line of work.

“God damn it,” Myungsoo whispers against her neck amidst _Artemis Fury report to Bay 2, level A-43. Artemis Fury report to Bay 2, level A-43_. “Looks like some Kaiju doesn’t want me to get any tonight. Amber and Hyuna just had to be on leave, didn’t they?” He slumps against her as she laughs and ruffles the back of his head.

“Then let’s get rid of it fast, okay?” she places her hands on the sides of his face, and kisses him. He responds a little too eagerly until a fresh bout of _Artemis Fury report to Bay 2, level A-43, Artemis Fury report to Bay 2, level A-43_ forces her to break it off. “Come on,” she smiles as he wrinkles his nose. “We’ve got a city to save. And I really want that speaker to shut up.”

“The only things we save are the fish in the ocean,” Myungsoo mutters, but he smiles - that smile that fills her with warmth - and kisses her one last time before picking up her army regulation sweater from the floor. He pulls it over her head and picks up his own, then re-buckles his belt. “Well the night is still young so if we do this quick we might still make it back before midnight. That’s usually when the spell breaks, right?”

“Shut up,” Soojung laughs as he slings his backpack over his shoulder and beckons for her to leave first.

“It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you in a drivesuit anyway,” his hand finds hers as they make their way briskly through the corridors. “This might actually be good compensation.”

Soojung rolls her eyes, but her grip on his tightens anyway.

 

 

 

“I still don’t understand why we’re heading to Nagasaki,” Myungsoo sighs and looks over at Soojung. “What’s happening with the Shatterdome there? What’s going on at Tokyo? Aren’t they all closer?”

“Tacit Ronin is in Lima and Echo Saber is undergoing maintenance,” Jongdae’s voice echoes through the speaker. “Coyote Tango’s pilots are on leave. So it’s just you guys. Can’t do much about it, I’m afraid,” he says apologetically, and Soojung imagines him shrugging and looking sheepish.

“That’s alright, it’s not your fault,” she smiles. “Hey, have you managed to ask Sunyoung out yet?” The Jumphawks are whirring overhead.

“I love it when you’re gracious,” Myungsoo smiles at her. His head snaps back to the control panel. “You’d better be thankful she forgives you because it really is all your fault, Jongdae. Sunyoung would be better off not dating you.”

“Save it for the bedroom guys,” Jongdae sighs. “And yeah I did, we’re going out tomorrow night.” She hears the smile in his voice. “Anyway, you’ll be sorry you won’t forgive me, Kim Myungsoo, because this will be the last time you hear my voice through this speaker. Yixing’s coming back tomorrow.”

“Aww,” Soojung pouts despite the stab of pain in her chest at the mention of Yixing’s name. “I was just getting used to it too.”

“Don’t worry, I won’t miss your terrible voice,” Myungsoo tells him. Soojung laughs. Jongdae curses.

“Alright Artemis Fury, your orders,” Victoria’s voice takes over. Myungsoo falls silent and Soojung wipes the smile off her face. “The drop will be at an intercept distance of 150 miles off the coast of Nagasaki, do you copy?”

“Copy,” Myungsoo says.

“It’s a category 3, weighing in at 5, 200 tons. Tokyo has codenamed it as Kohryu. They’re prepping Echo Saber as fast as they can to hold the miracle mile but until they do, you’ll be on your own. Prepare for the drop.”

“Short and sharp as always,” Soojung remarks when Myungsoo cuts off the connection.

“That’s what we love about her,” he replies with a grim smile. “You ready?”

Soojung feels the stab of worry that always appears before they head into battle, and she can tell by the look on Myungsoo’s face that he can feel it too. For a second her mind goes cold, and then she feels a familiar warmth creeping in and enveloping her, like being wrapped in a blanket on a cold winter’s night. She suddenly feels a little more comfortable, a little more confident. Myungsoo is looking at her.

“This has been one heck of a year for the both of us,” he says quietly. “But I don’t regret any second of it. Not even a microsecond. I know what this means to you, Soojung, and I want you to remember that you can do this. Believe in me, okay?”

Soojung can feel nothing but love flooding through her brain, and for one wild moment she wishes that this moment would last forever - just her and Myungsoo sharing one mind in the head of a Jaeger, without anything to fight. She shakes her head slightly as Myungsoo’s expression changes to something a little more wistful. Wishful thinking. With nothing to fight there is no reason to be in a Jaeger, and without being in a Jaeger there is no way for them to mind meld. A vicious circle of cause and effect all leading up to this moment in her life: being dropped in the middle of the East China Sea to fight for her life and a hundred thousand others.

“Okay,” she says.

 

 

 

Kohryu is long, serpentine, almost snake-like, with short arms and legs. A design flaw, Soojung thinks, but also an advantage against her and Myungsoo’s hapkido fighting style. Tossing a 5,200 ton Kaiju over their shoulder and slamming it on to the ocean floor is back-breaking work, but it works little to their advantage when the 5,200 tone Kaiju is also an exceptionally skilled swimmer.

“Coming from 10 o'clock!” Jongdae yells into the speaker, and up Kohryu comes again, jumping in a corkscrew dive right at their right arm.

“Sword!” Myungsoo yells as he grabs the Kaiju around the neck- or where its neck should be. The both of them whirl around, flipping it over their arm and slamming it back it into the ocean.

“No!” Soojung pants. She can feel one scaly foot beneath her hand, and she isn’t going to let go now. “We should drown it! The sword isn’t -.” She doesn’t get to finish her sentence when the foot suddenly disappears from beneath her and a whip-like tail slams into them and throws them off their feet.

Myungsoo screams in pain as Kohryu coils itself around the Jaeger’s right arm and squeezes. “The sword, Soojung, get the sword!” He lets out a strangled cry and Soojung sees the electricity running from his circuity suit up and down his arm. _Can Jaeger pilots die from the pain inflicted on a robot?_

“I’m on it!” she cries, and releases the sword from her gauntlet. It takes a painfully long time to charge up, and Myungsoo’s cries are more painful with every passing second. There’s a loud crack inside the Conn Pod, louder even than when Kohryu struck them in the face and left a large crack on the visor, and Soojung gives a battle cry as _Lightning sword load complete_ fills her ears and she drives the blade up from Myungsoo’s elbow through the Kaiju. There’s a terrible screech from the monster as the electricity sizzles through its skin, and it falls with a great splash into the water.

“Are you alright?” Soojung asks amidst the alarms beeping and the sparks flying off from the sides of the Conn Pod. “Myungsoo!” He’s holding his arm and breathing hard, his eyes closed.

“I’m alright, I -.”

“Artemis, report your status!” Victoria’s voice rings out around them. “Right arm circuits have been damaged, the plasma cannon has been disconnected,” they hear Jongdae in the background. “We’re reconnecting it as we speak, just hold on!”

“We’re fine,” Myungsoo pants. “My right arm’s gone numb but Soojung drove the sword through it. We don’t know if it’s still alive, we need backup immediately! Where the hell is Echo Saber?!”

“Kaiju signature rising!” Jongdae yells. “Coming from 6 o’clock and fast! Brace yourselves!”

“Myungsoo, we need to - !” Soojung starts just as a blow to the back of their head has them crashing into the sea. She can feel the weight of the Kaiju on their back, and she thinks she sees water beginning to stream in through the crack in the hull.

“Come on, let’s kill this motherfucker!” Myungsoo bellows, and Kohryu takes the opportunity to tear their - his - right arm right out of their socket.

“LOCCENT WE NEED BACKUP IMMEDIATELY!” Soojung screeches as Myungsoo howls, swinging forwards in his harness as he clutches at his arm. She has enough fortitude to aim the sword behind her in the hopes of stabbing the Kaiju through the head, but as they’re pulled out of the water and dunked in again backwards, she knows she’s hopelessly missing. Kohryu wraps itself around their head and begins to squeeze, and Soojung hears metal splintering beneath the pressure. The crack in the hull splits open. “You won’t take another one from me!” Soojung grits her teeth as she and Myungsoo raise the sword and stab downwards. She feels the weapon slice through flesh and Kohryu disappears again.

“Get up, Myungsoo, we have to get up!” she cries as water streams into the hull, and they rise unsteadily to their feet. There is now a hole on Myungsoo’s side of the Conn Pod, the moon watching them calmly, silently among its place in the stars. She can smell the saltiness in the balmy air, and for a second she forgets how she even came to be here, in the head of the Jaeger in the middle of the ocean when 49 minutes ago she was in Myungsoo’s room with his hands on her ribcage.

“Artemis Fury, this is Echo Saber!” an unfamiliar voice crackles through the intercom. “We’re on our way, just hold on for a few seconds more!” And relief floods through Soojung like the waves crashing against Artemis’ legs.

“The hull has been compromised,” Myungsoo relays back to LOCCENT. “LOCCENT, do you copy? Jongdae! Marshall!” There’s nothing but static. Myungsoo curses, and hits the intercom. “Echo, we’ve been compromised, we need you here stat!” he sends out.

“10 seconds away,” comes the reply.

“Soojung,” Myungsoo looks at her. “If anything happens, I just want you to know that I lov -.”

He doesn’t get to complete his sentence. Because Kohryu coils itself around Artemis’ torso, slams its tail straight through the hull, wraps it around him and pulls him right out of Soojung’s head.

A blank moment. Electrical shocks paralyzing her in place. And then unbearable pain. She’s screaming, screaming his name or screaming in denial she can’t tell, but she can still see through his eyes, she can feel Kohryu’s tail wrapped around her own body, see the sea and the sky spinning together until they are more or less the same thing, and then darkness. The cold ocean slamming into her, the weight around her waist dragging her down, down, down. She’s opening her mouth in one voiceless scream, the water filling her lungs. The lights of Artemis Fury growing fainter above the surface. Silver air bubbles rising in the inky black water.

The last thought in his voice she would ever hear:

_Soojung._

And he’s gone.

 _Loading_. The pressure in her head is heavy, tightening with every second. _Loading_. She strains to lift the sword with both hands, feeling as if her brain is ready to explode. _Myungsoo, Myungsoo, Myungsoo. Myungsoo. Lightning sword load complete._

She cuts off Kohryu’s tail just as Echo Saber appears in her vision, cuts off its head just as they come running up. She keeps slicing even as the pilots try to hold her back, even as the blood dripping from her nose splatters her white drivesuit, plunges her hand into the black water as if she might find him and pull him back out and strap him into his harness and tell him she loves him and she would never, ever let him be her co-pilot again.

 

 

 

 

 **2022, SEPTEMBER 3. ARTEMIS FURY CONN POD.**  
_Soojung._

Amidst the chaos of Echo Saber trying to hold her back and the electricity running through her bones, she hears the voice. Deep. Low. Soojung. Calling her name in every possible way Myungsoo would not. She turns, and sees a boy standing behind her in the Conn Pod, wearing a black drivesuit with red and yellow lines running through it like a circuit board. His mouth is kind. His eyes are not.

“This is just a memory, sunbaenim,” he says, holding a hand out to her. _Sunbaenim_. It echoes through her, and she thinks she remembers a time long ago, when someone she just met called her that honorific. “This isn’t real. Listen to me. It’s me, Jongin. Remember? Your co-pilot. Come back to reality, Soojung. Come back.”

She stares, and another drop of blood falls to the ground.

“It’s me, Jongin. I’m here for you, Soojung. I’m here. Stay with me now. You’re alright. You’re alright.” He takes another step towards her, his hand outstretched. The quiet in her brain is unnerving.

She takes it.

And she’s on the floor of Artemis Fury’s Conn Pod, her vision blurry. She’s lying in someone’s arms. Her drivesuit is black. She looks up into the face of Kim Jongin as _Drift sequence terminated_ echoes around them. “You’re okay,” Jongin breathes, his arm around her and holding her tight. “You’re okay.”

_Would you like to try again?_

Jongin chuckles. “I really wish this thing would just shut up.”

 

 

 

 

He’s waiting for her outside her room when she steps out for the first time in 24 hours, feeling utterly drained. “Hey,” he says. He doesn’t smile, and she wishes he would. It would make everything feel better. “Can we talk?”

She doesn’t know anywhere private enough, so she takes him to the games room, a rectangular cement block with no windows housing a ping-pong table and a rusty foosball set that screeches every time anyone tries to play on it. Incheon never did get the same amount of treatment as the more well established Shatterdomes like Hong Kong or Lima.

“How are you feeling?” he asks as he sinks himself into one of the lumpy, stained sofas pushed up against one of the walls. She stays standing, her arms crossed protectively across her chest. He looks like he might comment on that, but he blinks, and his mouth closes.

“Like I’ve been thrown into a truck.” She doesn’t even try to lie. Her head is throbbing, as if the memories she’d so vividly relived had developed tangible weight and were pulling her down with it. “What did Marshall say?”

“She’s understandably pissed, but I think Yixing and Jonghyun managed to convince her somewhat that this was probably inevitable.” This time Jongin looks up at her with the same intense stare she encountered when they first met, that gaze that made her feel as though he could see right through to her bones. “Why did you agree to come back? After going through that, why are you still a Jaeger pilot?”

Soojung arms tighten instinctively. “I don’t know,” she mumbles. But she does. She thinks she does. She wants all those sessions with Jonghyun to mean something, to have given her some sort of reason as to why she’s still here. _To save the world_. But it feels stupid to say that aloud, as if she’s 16 again and naive and has a head full of a dream that was never really hers.

“No,” says Jongin. His fists are clenched. “You do know. I’ve been in your head, Soojung, I’ve seen everything. You never wanted to do this in the first place, so why are you still here?” She doesn’t understand why his eyebrows are furrowed, why the corners of his mouth look so dangerous. She feels that twinge of annoyance in the back of her head despite the fog that’s settled upon it, and her eyes narrow. Her arms drop.

“Maybe you’ve been in my head, but you don’t know what’s in here,” she thumps a fist into her chest. “Why are you so concerned, anyway? If it wasn’t for me you would have never been able to step foot into Artemis and you know it.” She lets the jab hang in the air.

“Maybe not, but I know enough to know that you’re insane to keep piloting a Jaeger that took so much away from you!” he cuts in before she can continue. “How did you think you’d ever be okay enough to get back in there with me after what happened to Myungsoo?”

No one has said his name aloud for 14 months. Soojung tries to steady herself.

“Don’t say his name,” she breathes. “Don’t you ever say his name.”

Jongin’s expression softens, and he covers his face in hands before taking several deep, long breaths. Soojung bites her lip to stop it from trembling and tries to swallow the heartache in her throat. “I’m sorry,” Jongin finally says, his voice calmer than before. “I really am. I know what it feels like to lose someone you adore right in front of your eyes. You’d know that, sunbaenim.”

Soojung remembers the boy with the smile like the end of the world from Jongin’s memories, remembers his skin tinged blue and the blue vapor expelling from his lungs like the polluted smoke spewing from a factory chimney. Remembers Jongin falling to his own knees as the last of the vapour dissolves into the air, his dead friend at his feet.

She turns away. She doesn’t want him to share her pain.

“If you know what it feels like then you’ll understand why I still have to stay,” she manages. Her hands are cold. Jongin’s expression is that unshakeable one that one only perfects after years in the military.

“So I don’t know what’s in your heart,” he gets to his feet. “But I felt everything in your head. We’re co-pilots now and I intend to be your co-pilot for as long as this war lasts.” He heaves a sigh. “You need to remember that piloting a Jaeger needs more than just Drift compatibility, sunbaenim, and until you learn to trust me Marshall Song won’t be letting either of us back into Artemis.” He rubs one eye with the back of his hand, and Soojung notices that his bags have become more pronounced. “I’m sorry if I hurt you, but you need to understand that it’s been 14 months since he passed and you’re still nowhere near stable enough to get back into that cockpit.”

“You don’t know that,” she hisses. Her arms are wrapped around herself again.

“I do know,” he says in a low voice, “that it wasn’t me who chased the rabbit, Soojung.” He hesitates as he walks past her, then continues on his way. “I’ll see you in the simulator.” He pauses in the doorway, and Soojung sees the conflict written on his face. “Look, if you need… if you feel like… just…” he sighs and checks himself. “If you ever need to talk, just remember that I’m here for you.”

The door clicks shut. Soojung sinks into his still-warm seat on the couch and buries her pounding head in her arms.

 

 

 

The days pass faster now that she has Jongin with her every single waking moment. He’s waiting for her outside her room (his is just across the corridor) when she opens the door in the morning and he constantly saves a seat for her in the mess hall, regardless of whether she opts to sit beside him or not. Ever since their fight in the games room he’s kept their conversations light - and slightly shallow, in her opinion - and hasn’t brought up her memories since.

So Soojung isn’t sure how she ended up here, 2 weeks later, in front of Jonghyun’s door with Jongin by her side.

“Soojung?” Jonghyun looks surprised, as he well should be. She went to him routinely for the 3 months after Myungsoo’s death and stayed away for the next 11. He pushes his glasses further up his nose, then beckons her in. “How are you?” He spots Jongin and holds out his hand with a warm smile. “You must be Kim Jongin.”

“Nice to meet you,” Jongin bows and shakes his hand.

“So what can I do for you?” Jonghyun asks after seating them and offering them tea (Soojung declines, Jongin does not). “Is everything alright?”

“You heard about what happened during the test Drift, doctor,” Jongin starts, and Soojung almost snorts. _Doctor_. She hasn’t heard anyone call Jonghyun that since, well, never. “And, well…” he glances at her. “Every other simulation that we’ve had has kind of failed. I just want to know if you can figure out why.”

Jonghyun joins his hands together and rests his chin on them, looking curiously at Soojung. She pretends she doesn’t notice. “Yes, I guessed as much. It really isn’t surprising, to be honest, given Miss Jung’s condition.”

This time Soojung really does snort. “Cut the crap Jonghyun and just tell him that I’m broken and can’t be fixed,” she crosses her arms over her chest and slumps back in her chair. 6 Drift tests later and she and Jongin still can’t establish a strong enough connection, and she can’t understand why. _I’m malleable. I’m Drift compatible with everyone but him_. But she knows, every time she feels Jongin in her head, that the right for anyone to be there drowned with Myungsoo in the middle of the East China Sea.

“Good to see you back to somewhat normal, Soojung,” Jonghyun smiles slightly. “But this isn’t something I can fix. Based on what I’ve seen down in LOCCENT, you’re completely resisting Jongin’s presence in your mind. It’s perfectly normal given what you’ve gone through, and it will take time for you to adjust, but time is a luxury none of us can afford right now.”

“Okay, so what can we do to fix this?” Jongin sets his cup down on the table. His knee brushes against Soojung’s when he leans over, but she doesn’t even twitch. “The next attack could be any day now, and I - we - want Artemis to be up and running smoothly when it comes.”

Jonghyun hums and haws for a few seconds before straightening up. He opens a drawer in his desk and pulls out a folder with several pages sticking out. He rifles through it, then nods. “I’m going to send you guys a list of trust exercises. They might be awkward at first but just stick through them and we might end up somewhere.” He looks at his watch. “Okay, I’ve got to go have a chat with some trainees now, but come back anytime.”

Jongin immediately gets up and bows. Soojung remains seated. “Can you give us a moment?” she asks when he holds the door open and looks expectantly at her. He nods, and she catches the look of relief in his eyes as he closes the door.

“How are you?” Jonghyun puts a hand on her shoulder. He looks more worn out now that they’re alone, but she can’t feel his pain anymore. Their shared pain is old now, buried beneath the years and fresh wounds that attack her with a vengeance when she tries to fall asleep.

“I see Myungsoo in him every time he smiles,” she says without answering the question. “When he smiles at me… it’s like… it’s like everything’s going to be alright. And I want that, you know. I want everything to be alright.”

Jonghyun half reaches for the notepad and pen on his desk, then changes his mind and takes her hand instead. “You have to let him in, Soojung.”

“I’m scared,” Soojung’s voice breaks. “I’m scared that if I let him in I’ll lose him too. That I’ll lose another smile that makes me feel like I can do anything to something I never really cared about in the first place.” She sniffles, and drags her sleeve across her nose. Jonghyun squeezes her hand. “Sorry,” she mumbles. “It’s good to see you.” She half means it.

“Don’t apologize for anything,” Jonghyun tells her as she gets up to leave. “This is good for you.”

“Do you think I’ll ever get better?” she asks.

“You’ve always been a fighter,” he opens the door and smiles as Jongin’s eyes lights up. “Don’t forget to drop by. Shall I fix a weekly appointment for you two?”

Soojung looks at Jongin. He nods hopefully at her, and she swears he looks like a puppy begging for a treat. It makes her want to burst into the biggest grin she can muster. “Okay,” she says instead. Jongin smiles.

 

“This is weird,” Jongin remarks when Soojung bursts out laughing for the third time in row during their second trust exercise. Looking each other in the eyes doesn’t sound so bad on paper, but in practice she finds that she can’t hold his gaze for more than 2 minutes without feeling the unbearable urge to laugh, especially when Jongin keeps turning bright red after the first minute. She finds it kind of endearing.

“Let’s try one more,” she suggests. They’d done the falling exercise the day before, which was far easier than Soojung expected. Falling backward into his arms only took a few tries to get used to, and he threw himself into hers without hesitation on the first try. She figures that it isn’t a problem trusting him with her physical body, it’s her mind that doesn’t seem to want to cooperate.

“Can’t we play music?” Jongin flops backwards on to the mat on the floor. They’re in the meditation room, the tablet with Jonghyun’s instructions on the floor beside them. “Sitting in silence staring into each other’s eyes is a little unnerving. Especially when I can see my face in yours.”

Soojung shakes her head. “The Drift is silence, remember? It’d be good practice for when we actually have to do it.”

“Ugh, fine,” Jongin concedes, pulling himself back up. “You know, when I signed up for this, I didn’t think I’d end up doing therapy for couples on a yoga mat next to the Psych Analyst’s office.” He sighs, something Soojung has realized he does quite often. “Start the clock.”

Soojung tries to concentrate, but the implication of his words ring around her head and she breaks it off a little past 10 seconds. “What happened?” he asks. “Soojung?” She bunches her knees up to her chest and locks her arms around them.

“I know this is a total drag for you,” she says darkly. “You can always leave if you want to. There are other Shatterdomes looking for pilots. Artemis had a good run, maybe it’s time to send her to Oblivion Bay.”

“What, no, I…” Jongin looks stricken. He half gets out of his cross-legged position on the floor, to scoot closer, reaches for her, then pauses. “I’m sorry, I didn’t think. I didn’t mean it like that. Really. I want to _help_ you, Soojung. Anyway,” he rubs his face his hand. “I’m the one who dragged us to the doctor anyway.”

Soojung lets herself laugh then. “You’re the only one who actually calls him that,” she grins. “I bet that’s why he was so willing to help you.”

“But he _is_ a doctor!” Jongin protests, then smiles beatifically. “You know,” he starts, drawing a little closer, his hand beside her feet. “It’s really nice hearing you laugh.”

His army regulation jumper smells like the standard washing powder they all get, and she can feel the warmth radiating from him on her legs. He doesn’t come any closer, his face just before her knees. Their gazes lock, but Soojung doesn’t look away and Jongin doesn’t turn red. In fact, he’s looking at her more intensely than before, like he isn’t just seeing right through to her bones, but like he can see her. All of her; her heart beating lonely in her chest, her lungs quivering with each breath. And in that moment she thinks she sees herself in his eyes, sees his grief and his pain laid out bare beneath her feet just for her.

They both jump when an alarm goes off and the door bursts open. Jonghyun looks satisfied when he sees Jongin pulling Soojung to her feet, but his expression soon changes into something more harried. “You’re wanted in LOCCENT,” he pants. “A Kaiju has just exited the Breach.”

Soojung’s heart stops.

 

 

 

“Give it to them!” they hear when they hurry into mission control. “They need to get out there!”

“Ranger Liu, I will not tolerate this kind of insubordination,” Victoria’s voice is steely. “Artemis Fury has not been able to hold a neural bridge for more than 15 minutes, I will not allow them to go out there when they’re not ready to.”

“But they can do it!” Soojung has never heard Amber sound so enraged. “They need to do this! It’s the only way to get her back on her feet and I won’t let her rot away in this god damned concrete hole when she could be out there defending the world, Marshall!”

“Get Tokyo, Mr Kim,” Victoria turns to Jongdae as Soojung and Jongin march through the doors. “Tell them that all our current Jaeger pilots are unfit to provide support to Hong Kong. They’ll have to do it instead.” She sets a cold gaze on Amber. “Ranger Liu, I’m suspending Crash Nebula for this mission and the next. If you ever forget your place again I will make sure that you never fight another Kaiju as long as you serve under me.” Amber falls back, looking outraged, and Hyuna puts her hand on her co-pilot’s shoulder, muttering to her under her breath. Jongdae catches Soojung’s eye just as he’s about to connect, and he hesitates.

“Marshall, Hong Kong says they need an answer immediately,” Yixing pushes himself away from the screen. “They’re deploying Crimson Typhoon in 2 hours and they need to know who we’re sending to defend the miracle mile.”

“Tell them we’re redirecting them to Tokyo,” Victoria’s eyes meet Soojung’s but she doesn’t offer any emotion. “We’re not ready to send anyone out there.”

“No!” comes a yell from next to Soojung, and she turns to Jongin in surprise. “Send us, Marshall,” he grasps Soojung’s hand and lifts it up between them. “We’re ready and available, we can do it.”

“Ranger, I will not allow you to jeopardize your lives and everyone else's by going out there,” Victoria says firmly. “Until you establish a holding neural connection you will not engage in any missions, do I make myself clear?”

“But ma’am -”

“Marshall, Tokyo says they’ll be defending their own shores. We need to send someone!”

“Marshall!” Amber cries out suddenly. Hyuna pulls her back before she can spring out of place. “Let Artemis go! They can do it! I know they can!”

Silence descends over mission control as everyone looks at Victoria. Her eyes are narrowed, but her face betrays nothing else. Soojung steps forward, her heart pounding in her chest. She clears her throat and swallows. “Marshall, I… we can do this. Just let us try.” Victoria looks at her, at her hand still in Jongin’s, then massages her temples before smoothing back her hair.

“Mr Zhang,” she says firmly, calmly. “Contact Hong Kong. Tell them to send the drop coordinates and we will be sending Artemis Fury to assist Crimson Typhoon in defending the miracle mile.” Yixing nods and gets to work. Victoria turns to Soojung. “Report to the Drivesuit Room, you two,” she orders. “And don’t make me regret this,” she adds as Jongin turns to Soojung with a large smile plastered to his face.

It is only in the elevator ride up to the Drivesuit Room does Soojung realize that her hand is still clasped in Jongin’s.

 

 

 

“Hey,” Jongin says when they’ve been deployed. Soojung is leaning back in her harness, her eyes closed as the Jumphawks whir overhead. She doesn’t reply. One minute to the 15 minute mark where their connection always fizzles out. Thirty seconds. Fifteen. Ten.

Five. She can feel everything beginning to distort a little, Jongin’s thoughts in her head becoming a little more blurred, a little more distant.

Four. She’s looking at herself through Jongin’s eyes, see her own doubt written on her face. Her cheeks flushed. _I’m the one who dragged us to the doctor_. She sees herself laugh. Sees himself reflected in her eyes as she stops, her grin fading.

Three. Two. One.

Soojung opens her eyes as Jongin smiles at her. She’s still here. The feeling in her head is nothing like Myungsoo’s, but it warms her up all the same.

“I told you I’m here for you,” he says. “Let’s do this.”

 

 

 

 


	3. a burning jet

 

 **2020, NOVEMBER 10. GANGHWADO COASTLINE, SOUTH KOREA.**  
Atticon makes landfall way ahead of time, appearing in the mouth of the Han river before Artemis has time to defend the miracle mile. Fighting so close to the coastline knowing that there are still people around who haven’t been evacuated makes it ten times harder than usual, and even though this is their second mission together, there is still Myungsoo’s anxiety running through her head and mixing in with hers.

Still, Soojung thinks they’re doing some pretty great damage despite there being limited space in which to throw Atticon around, and with the legendary Cherno Alpha on the way it seems like things are going to end in another win for her and a second for Myungsoo.

 _Let’s just use the plasma gun and get this over and done with_ , she hears Myungsoo in her head when Atticon reels after being knifehand struck in the face, and she nods. Catching Atticon’s arm and twisting it behind its back, Myungsoo begins loading the plasma cannon. “Come on!” she cries as Atticon struggles in their grip, gnashing at them with sharp teeth.

“I got it!” Myungsoo unloads two direct hits into the Kaiju’s abdomen, where it falls back into the Han with a great splash that drenches them and spills water out over the embankments into the streets. Panting, Soojung turns to look at Myungsoo as he smiles back at her (she feels a shiver of excitement crawl up her spine) and lowers the cannon.

“LOCCENT, this is Artemis, mission success,” she relays back. “Tell Cherno Alpha to turn back, and sorry for stealing their kill.”

Myungsoo laughs. “Whoops.”

“Hey, you guys did it!” comes a high, girlish voice through the intercom, and Soojung and Myungsoo exchange glances.

“Jinri?” Soojung asks incredulously. “What are you doing here?”

“We always hover around for a little while in case anything happens, you know, as backup, and wow, did you guys kick its ass or what?” Jinri’s excitement is almost infectious, and Myungsoo starts grinning deliriously again. “Hey, look up, can you see me?”

Soojung looks up and spots her best friend’s familiar T-50, the only black one in the whole fleet, circling above them. She doesn’t know any names of any basic flight manoeuvres, nor does she know how to execute any of them properly, but she does know that out of all the PPDC fighter pilots that Incheon has, Jinri is the best.

“I’m waving,” Jinri says. “Wave back to me.” Soojung and Myungsoo oblige, even if Soojung feels him thinks to himself that this is wildly inappropriate for a Jaeger to wave at anyone. Jinri laughs. “It’s kind of weird seeing this robot waving at me but it’s pretty cool. Is it done? Are we all going back now?”

“Maybe you should get your orders from Marshall and not me,” Soojung rolls her eyes. “How are you even managing to talk like this? Can’t everyone else hear you?”

Jinri chuckles. “Let’s just say there are some pretty good perks to dating the Chief LOCCENT Officer,” she giggles, and Soojung feels Myungsoo’s deadpan. “Hey, oh my god, I have to tell you something later when we get back, I’ve been dying to tell you since yesterday but you were in the simulator. Oh, and don’t tell Myungsoo.”

“I’ll find out everything in the Drift anyway,” Myungsoo says as the Jumphawks appears in the distance. “Scoot on back now, Jinri, you’re in the way.”

“Blunt as always,” Jinri replies, and Soojung can imagine her sticking her tongue out at him as she does another turn. “You’ll be sorry later, Mister Kim.”

“Jinri -,” Soojung starts, when a sudden beeping on the HUD catches her eye. “Jinri, get the hell out of here!” she yells as Yixing’s voice cuts into the Pod.

“Kaiju signature rising, coming from 8 o'clock! That thing is still alive, Artemis!”

“We got it!” Myungsoo shouts, loading the plasma cannon, when Atticon bursts out of the water and blindsides them, its claws digging into their shoulders. “Load already, Jesus - !” he curses as Atticon bites down on the cannon and tears it out of their arm, throwing it behind it into the water.

“Cannon is compromised!” Soojung relays. Thumping Atticon on the head seems like something out of a playground brawl, but with the Kaiju chomping down on their hand it seems to be the only way to deal with it. “Come on, Myungsoo!” she yells.

And then a missile hits it in the back of the head. Soojung sees the black fighter jet zip through the smoke rising from the Kaiju, spraying a barrage of bullets at its face. The Kaiju gives an ear-shattering cry, and releases them.

Soojung sees it all in slow motion: the Kaiju lumbering after the jet, them running behind it, the T-50 pulling out and narrowly missing being struck, her screaming at Jinri to _get out of here, get out of here, you’re going to get killed_ , Jinri yelling at her _then kill it already!_ , Soojung yelling back that _you’re too fast, just get the hell out of here!_ , Myungsoo telling her to use the sword, the _Loading Lightning Sword_ echoing in their ears, and then, and then, and then -

Jinri’s tail crumpling under a fingertip. Smoke billowing out from her engines as she begins to lose altitude. Atticon lifting one giant scaly hand. Bringing it down.

An explosion.

She spots a wingtip crashing into the water, all that remains of her best friend and her fighter jet.

 

 

 

Cherno Alpha finishes off Atticon just as it swims inland and hits Itaewon, leaving behind a trail of destruction in its wake. Most of the city had already been evacuated, but the casualties are devastating all the same. It takes a week to clear the remains of the Kaiju away safely, the spire of the N Seoul Tower protruding from between its eyes. Kaiju Blue leaks for days, but its effects on a singler person only last hours. The city loses another fraction of its population. Myungsoo curses and says Cherno should’ve known better. After the service (not a funeral, you can’t have funerals for the bodies you don’t find) Yixing takes a leave of absence. Soojung sleepwalks through the next 4 months as she shuttles between her bed and weekly sessions with Jonghyun, wishing she had been more vigilant.

She half wants Yixing to yell at her, tell her it’s all her fault for not checking properly, for being too confident. For not looking out for Jinri when he specifically told her to. He doesn’t. He just leaves.

She buries the charred white helmet with _Choi Jinri_ printed on it beside the Han river. One more to haunt her at night.

 

 

 

 

 **2022, SEPTEMBER 21. SOUTH CHINA SEA.**  
When Tentalus emerges from the waves it’s clear why Hong Kong called for backup. With a head full of bristling, glowing tentacles, it proves to be a match for both Jaegers as it wraps itself around their arms and trips them up with its tail. It takes minutes for Soojung to figure that it’s relying solely on its tentacles as its main offense, and she’s just about to relay this to Typhoon when the Kaiju begins spinning the both of them around.

“What the hell kind of creature even has tentacles and a tail?!” Jongin yells as he wraps a hand around the limb clinging to their arm. “I’ve got it! Let’s load the cannon!”

“No!” Soojung yells back. “I’ve got a plan! Typhoon!” she sends out. “We just need to cut them off! Cut them off and we’ll deal with the rest later!”

“Copy!” One of the Tang triplets responds - she doesn’t know which one - and a minute later Typhoon’s hands are saw blades and they begin swinging. Electric blue tentacles fall into the ocean one by one as Tentalus screams and the Jaeger backs away to regain itself. This is Soojung’s first time seeing the Thundercloud Formation first hand, and she can feel Jongin’s admiration in her head.

“Come on, we can’t let Typhoon have all the fun!” he says, and Soojung nods, unsheathing the sword. _Lightning Sword loading_ , she hears, and the words teleport her into her own memories. She sees Kohryu’s head separate from its body. A black fighter jet burning as it speeds towards a scaly Kaiju hand. The cold ocean slamming into her as it drags her down towards her watery grave.

“No!” Jongin roars, and she’s snapped out of her spell. _Lightning Sword load complete_. Tentalus has thrown Typhoon back under the water and is holding it down with its weight. “You don’t belong in the past anymore,” Jongin breathes, his expression intense. He raises his left arm, and Soojung does likewise, her eyes locked on his. “You belong here, in this cockpit, right now! With! Me!” And with each word, both he and Soojung slice off the tentacles holding on to them and pull the Kaiju off their partner, slamming it into the ocean. Jongin looks at Soojung and they’re thinking the same thing in her head: as Tentalus shoots the last of its appendages towards them, they drive the sword straight through its chest.

In a few minutes it’s all over: Artemis locking Tentalus’ arms behind it as Typhoon hacks away at its throat. Another potential disaster averted. The clock resets.

It doesn’t hit her until she’s back in the Shatterdome, Yixing looking down at them from mission control with a mixture of pride and sadness written on his face. Beside him, Victoria looks relieved.

Soojung has just bagged her 8th kill. Jongin has just had a taste of his first.

And it feels pretty damn amazing.

 

 

 

The adrenaline is still buzzing in her veins a few days later when she gets up in the morning and heads down to the Kwoon. Minhyuk is already there, tapping away at something on his tablet. He looks up when Soojung enters, and grins. “Look who’s back in the game,” he nods. His way of congratulations, Soojung knows. “I’ve monitored your fight, and I think I’ve come up with a way to meld your defensive style with Jongin’s more offensive one. It won’t be easy but it won’t be… you know...”

“... the same as what me and Myungsoo had?” Soojung stuffs her hands into her military jacket. She stares down at her boots, tries to keep down the thought that has been gnawing at her ever since she saw Yixing’s face in the mission control window after taking down Tentalus. Her lips tremble. She’s always been bad at this.

“Six months ago you didn’t even want to hear his name,” Minhyuk says carefully. “Are you okay with it now?”

She shrugs and drops to the floor, unlacing one of her boots and pulling it off. She doesn’t want Minhyuk to see that her eyes are full of tears; she doesn’t want to speak because the lump in her throat will give her away. She doesn’t want him to know that she still isn’t okay speaking about Myungsoo in past tense, that she isn’t okay coming back elated from a mission with a different person in the harness next to her.

She tries to hide her trembling fingers by bending over more, but Minhyuk kneels down beside her and puts his hand over hers. She stiffens, but doesn’t pull away.

“I have never,” he starts, “seen you connect with anyone as well as you did with Myungsoo. That fight you had with him… that was the first time I’d ever seen anyone break past your defence. That was the first time I had seen anyone beat you. That was why you let him in, didn’t you?”

She looks up at him. Her eyes are wet. “Yeah, I did. And that’s why I can’t let Jongin in. If I let him in I’ll fall in so deep that I’ll start to forget. That I’ll forget what it was like to fall in love Myungsoo. What it was like to Drift with Sooyeon. That I’ll forget everyone. And that terrifies me.”

“Look, kid,” he puts a hand on her head. “I picked Jongin out of a batch of 20 kids because he is everything Myungsoo is not. Sure, he’s a great fighter and his mental strength is second to none, but he’s impulsive as hell and he makes the most inappropriate comments at the worst time possible. But I chose him for you because even though I know you’re malleable, Drift compatibility doesn’t always mean that that person would save you.” He chucks her under the chin. “That kid will save you, Soojung,” he says gently. “In all the ways I couldn’t. Just let him in.”

She sniffs, and drags her sleeve across her nose. “I don’t know if I can,” she mumbles. “I don’t know if I can replace Myungsoo so fast.”

“You won’t be replacing him,” Minhyuk heaves a sigh through his nose. “You won’t be replacing any of them.” He taps a finger to her forehead. “They’ll always be with you. You’ll always find them in the Drift. Don’t forget that.” He gets to his feet and holds a hand out to her. “Come on, we’re 5 minutes behind schedule and I need you guys to learn this move today.”

She wipes her face and gets up. “You’re stronger now, Minhyuk,” she remarks as she drops her jacket on to the mat.

He doesn’t even blink. “We can’t live in the past forever,” he replies.

 

 

 

 

 **2020, APRIL 17. KWOON COMBAT ROOM.**  
“5 - 4.”

Soojung stares into the eyes of her new co-pilot. His hair is jet black, damp with sweat. His chest is heaving. His gaze is cold as the Fightmaster reads out the final score, but when he straightens and holds a hand out to her it melts into a warm smile.

_He has eyes like the sun._

She can see Minhyuk in the crowd in front of her. He spots her looking and nods, only a slight smile playing on the corner of his lips for a second before it drops. She can’t imagine what he must be feeling right now, seeing her in the same room where she had fought him only a month before, a new co-pilot by her side. A new stranger standing where he once stood, all because he couldn’t take the mental strain of having her in his head. All because his mind was weak where his body was not. She nods back. She thinks she can imagine how he feels.

“Hi,” says her new co-pilot. His hand is still wrapped around her wrist.

His name is Kim Myungsoo. He is the first person to beat her since Sooyeon did, 4 years earlier.

 

 

 

 

 **2022, OCTOBER 1. INCHEON SHATTERDOME GAMES ROOM.**  
“His name was Taemin,” Jongin says suddenly in the middle of a ping pong match, sweat dripping off the end of his nose. “He was the first friend I made in the Bone Slums, I met him when I was fighting off a bunch of older boys who were trying to steal my blanket.” He serves the ball to her, and she misses. “He came along and helped me, but he looked so carefree that I almost hated him.” He traps the ball as she bounces it back to him, and looks at it. She decides not to say anything. “But he had this smile that made you feel like a lot of bad things were going to happen, but everything was still going to be okay. You can’t hate a guy like that, not matter how hard you try.”

_A boy with a smile like the end of the world._

“I remember when Atticon attacked Seoul. We were working at the bakery that day when the sirens went off. I made it into the shelters, but it wasn’t until after the doors closed that I realized that Taem wasn’t with me.” He’s still holding the ball in his hand, a far-off look on his face as he squeezes it in his palm. _Atticon_. Soojung tries not to think of a burning T-50. “I didn’t find him til later, when they let us back outside.” Here Jongin gives a dry laugh. “The bastard hadn’t even been in a shelter, but he was still alive. He had nine lives, I swear.” He trails off, and flattens the ball.

“Jongin?” Soojung asks. She puts down the paddle, sensing that the game is over. That was the only ball they had anyway.

“Taemin survived the attack,” Jongin grits his teeth. “He probably would have stood in the path of a Kaiju and survived. But the next day, on our way back to the bakery, we found this giant patch of Kaiju Blue in the middle of the street. It wasn’t even cordoned off; it was like no one even knew about it. And Taemin, he goes closer just to have a look. He tells me not to worry.” Jongin is blinking rapidly, and Soojung sees fire in his eyes. “He just wants to see. And I should’ve said no, I should’ve pulled him away. But I didn’t.” He trails off. She waits. He inhales deeply, exhales just as hard. “Two days later he was dead at my feet. A 3, 000 tonne monster couldn’t kill him when it was alive, but guess what?” He gives a cynical, wobbly laugh. “It killed him when it was dead. Oh, the irony.”

A part of Soojung wants to hug him. Hold his hand and tell him that she lost someone important to her on that day too, that she knows exactly what it is like to keep burying the people you love. Another part of her wants to stay where she is, on the other side of the ping-pong table with a net between them. Tell him that she already knows this story, has seen it in his head multiple times. That his grief is nothing compared to hers.

Jongin drops the ball on to the floor at his feet. “I know you know this story.” The look he gives her is dead, and it makes her blood run cold. “Just like I know yours. I thought that when we got our first win you’d start trusting me more, but I feel like you’re getting worse.”

She wasn’t expecting that last sentence. She bristles. “What are you talking about?” she shoots back. “We’re here playing ping pong together, aren’t we?”

“Yeah, and you’re really sucking at it,” Jongin shrugs. “Something’s off about you, you’ve been acting weird ever since we started training with Minhyuk.” He fixes her with a steely glare. “There’s something you’re not telling me. Something that you’ve been telling Minhyuk. And I don’t like it.”

“Excuse me?” she reels backwards, opening her eyes wide. “You don’t like me talking to the Fightmaster? I’m sorry, but I wasn’t aware I needed your permission to talk to other people,” she claps a hand to her chest in fake surprise. “I must’ve missed the memo. Why don’t you try sending it again, and then we can come back and have a nice long ping pong match that doesn’t end with you talking about your dead friend.”

Jongin suddenly looks dangerous, and she knows she’s hit a nerve. She doesn’t care. She knows she’s been getting better, has definitely been feeling a lot more comfortable being around Jongin since defeating Tentalus, and it riles her that he’s insinuating that she’s only getting worse. It hurts even worse that a part of her knows that he’s right.

“Take that back,” he says quietly. His fist is clenched around the handle of his paddle.

“I might live in the past in my head,” she plants her hands on to the table and stares him down. Her cheeks are burning, just like they always do when she’s mad, but she doesn’t care. “But at least I don’t talk about it. At least I don’t try to drag other people back with me.” She grabs her jacket from the couch and flounces out.

“That’s exactly the problem with you!” Jongin yells after her. “You only live in your head!” She hears his roar of frustration and the crack of wood splintering as she closes the door behind her, and she guesses that he’s flung his paddle into the wall. She doesn’t turn back.

 

 

 

 

 **2020, FEBRUARY 11. INCHEON SHATTERDOME MESS HALL.**  
Amber bangs her tray down with more force than usual, making Soojung jump. She squints up at her co-pilot, her apple juice straw hanging out of her mouth. “What’s up?” she mumbles around it. Amber remains standing, her hands on her hips. She looks fiercer than usual, and Soojung braces herself for some yelling to happen.

“I’m going to tell you this before you hear it from anyone else!” Amber shoots a finger at her, and Soojung tilts to one side to avoid getting her eye taken out. “And I’m really sorry about it, because you have been the best co-pilot anyone could ever have! Working with you has been the best time of my life! I mean, sure, we never actually managed to fight any Kaiju together, but our simulator fights were awesome!”

“Amber, will you sit down and talk at a normal level?” Soojung hisses, noticing the people on the same table as them (and the surrounding ones) watching with interest.

“No, I will not!” Amber huffs, sticking her chest out.

Soojung looks sadly at what is left of her food. Another wasted meal. And it was bibimbap too, her favourite. She sighs. She grabs her juice carton, then her co-pilot’s hand, and drags her out of the room.

“Okay, what the hell is going on?” She leans back against the wall in the corridor, spearing her carton carefully and taking a sip. “What was so important that you had to tell me about it first and make me lose half of my bibimbap?”

“I’m being promoted,” Amber says, her tone and expression completely different from the one she had used just a few minutes before. She looks more serious, more wary. Soojung has always found these two sides of Amber interesting; the loud, playful one she shows to just about everyone and the quieter, more intense one she uses in the middle of a fight.

Soojung stops sucking on her straw. “What?”

“Yeah,” Amber crosses her arm against her chest. “Newly developed Jaeger. They have a pilot from Korea, a Kim Hyuna, but so far nobody has been Drift compatible with her.”

“But you are.” Soojung scratches her nail against the side of the juice carton. Another co-pilot leaving, another to take her place. The circle of her life. “Will you be leaving?”

“No, I’ll still be here,” Amber suddenly punches her on the shoulder. “Who else is gonna take care of ya, huh?” She grins, and Soojung feels a little better. At least not everyone leaves. “Marshall was going to call us both in tonight to tell you but I kinda wanted to let you know first. I felt like I needed you to hear it from me.”

Soojung half-forces a smile. “Yeah, thanks, Amber. I appreciate it. Hey, you’re gonna make a great pilot. What’s the Jaeger’s name?”

“Apparently they named it Zeta Phalanx, but that sounds absolutely terrible,” Amber sticks out her tongue and makes a puking face. “I’m gonna try and change it to Crash Nebula, it sounds way cooler.” She punches the air, and smiles. “Don’t worry, Soojung. You’ll be just as fine with the next one. You always are.” She pats her on the shoulder, but Soojung can still feel her punch bruising her bones.

“Definitely,” she agrees. She doesn’t tell Amber that she wishes she wasn’t.

 

 

 

Later, when Amber goes back to the mess hall to see if her food is still around (Soojung knows it isn’t), Soojung throws herself into her bed and stares up at the ceiling. One year and three co-pilots later and she’s back in this same position: a Ranger without a co-pilot, in a Jaeger that she still doesn’t feel belongs to her.

“How long will this go on?” she asks the ceiling. It doesn’t respond.

She groans and flips on to her stomach, squashing her face into the pillow. The apple juice churns in her stomach with what bibimbap she had managed to get down, and she groans again. Three co-pilots. Four, if you counted Sooyeon. Three co-pilots since Sooyeon. She tries not to think too much about Sooyeon. A year and three co-pilots later and her heart still feels like it’s stabbed by a dozen dulled IV drips.

 

 

 

Soojung can count the number of co-pilots she’s had on one hand.

The first after Sooyeon was Kim Joonmyun. He was friendly and easy to adapt to because of his ultimately bland personality, but they got along well until they went on their first mission 2 months after being assigned to each other. They won, Joonmyun’s first kill and her 4th, but for Joonmyun the sight of a Kaiju being so close completely broke him. He left soon after, and Soojung never heard from him again.

The second was Oh Sehun, who joined her a month after Joonmyun left. His facial expression usually alternated between sleepy, disinterested or confused, but he was the same age as her and also had a wicked (albeit weird) sense of humour, even if his English was absolute rubbish. They worked together for 6 months and had one kill before he was given his own Jaeger and stationed at the Anchorage Shatterdome to replace Gipsy Danger after Yancy Becket was killed. She kept in touch for a while, but even Drift compatibility wasn’t enough to cross the miles between them.

Third was Amber Liu, American-Taiwanese with near fluency in Korean, only her co-pilot for 3 months. It was her success with Amber that alerted Victoria that she was malleable. No one else had ever had more than two co-pilots, and Soojung became some kind of celebrity among the Rangers. It was a pity they didn’t even get a chance to go on a mission together, because Amber’s strategy tactics were one of the best Soojung had ever come across. Still, it was always fun when Amber was around, and she was the only one who could talk smack to Marshall Song and somewhat get away with it. Soojung admired her, but now she was just another ex co-pilot to join the list.

Soojung flexes her fingers. She hopes there won’t come a time when she runs out of fingers to count on.

 

 

 

 

 **2022, OCTOBER 22. INCHEON SHATTERDOME.**  
It takes her three weeks to work up the nerve to knock on his door. She thinks she might be better off without him, and Crash Nebula can keep defending the area while she continues to rot away in this reinforced concrete cage, but Jonghyun keeps asking her how the trust exercises are going and Minhyuk keeps glowering at her whenever she turns up to the Kwoon alone and the final nail in the coffin is when Victoria beckons to her and tells her to stop behaving like a spoilt brat, she didn’t spend hours convincing the UN to get Artemis Fury back just to have her mope around her room because she couldn’t get along with her co-pilot.

Soojung can’t take the hounding anymore, which is why she is here knocking on his door with no intention of apologizing whatsoever.

He opens the door after exactly 10 knocks. “What the hell do you want?” he asks brusquely. He looks like he’s just woken up, his hair sticking up one side and his eyes bleary, dressed in just a tank top and regulation pants. Soojung tries to keep her eyes focused on his face and not his arms. “It’s 2 in the morning for god’s sakes; do you not have a concept of bedtime?”

She ignores the jab and brushes him aside. “We still have some trust exercises to do and we’ve wasted too much time. Are you going to let me in?”

Jongin stares at her, looking completely bewildered. “You’re completely nuts, you know that?” But he stands aside for her anyway, letting her in. His room is almost identical to hers, except instead of an empty desk he has paper strewn everywhere and where her walls are bare he has several posters. He catches her looking at a particularly worn one with curling edges, and huffs. “Having fun there?” he flops onto his bed. Soojung tears herself away from the Jaeger on the propaganda poster - her Jaeger - and the dates of the Ranger recruitment drive - May 2021, Myungsoo was still alive then - and looks at him. He looks back.

“Atticon wasn’t that long ago, was it?” she asks quietly. Jongin’s expression loosens slightly.

“Almost 2 years ago,” he replies without the slightest hesitation, and she wonders how long he’s been counting the days between the death that changed him and this very second. She wonders how long it has been between the death that changed her and this very second. She stopped counting after the third. “There’s nothing left of Taemin by now.”

She rifles through some of the paper on his desk. Kaiju dossiers, the fighting styles of the more well-known Jaegers. She chances on a sheet with Sehun’s face on it. Jongin is still watching her warily. She covers the sheet back up. She feels something bubbling up in her chest, something she desperately wants to get out before it consumes her. “There was nothing left of Jinri the moment Atticon crashed her out of the sky,” she starts before she can stop herself. “And the fish have probably pecked Myungsoo’s bones clean by now. Don’t you think that’s a somewhat peaceful way to go?” She looks up. “We were still connected when he drowned, you know.”

Jongin sits up. “I know.”

“Do you think he felt the fish nibbling at him? Do you think he was happy that he wasn’t torn apart by sharks?” Soojung takes a piece of paper and a pencil and sits on the floor, facing Jongin. “I tell him I’m sorry everyday. If I had just listened to him instead of trying to drown that Kaiju he’d still be here, wouldn’t he?”

“Yeah, he would,” Jongin says quietly. “But I wouldn’t.”

They stare at each other for a few minutes before Jongin looks away. He gets up and walks past Soojung, and she stares down at the paper in her lap. His room smells like him. “Do you think you’d forgive me if I ever let you die?” she asks.

Jongin sits down behind her with a thump. There’s a second where she feels nothing, and then he leans back against her, his head resting on her shoulder. His hair tickles her jaw, and she’s slightly surprised by how soft it is. It feels slightly damp too, as if he’s just washed it. “I would if I knew that you had fought for me,” he says. She can feel his heartbeat through his tank top and her jumper and she can feel her own, as if she has two hearts inside her instead of none. She can feel the shift in pressure on her back every time he inhales and exhales. She closes her eyes.

“Trust exercise number 3,” she finally manages. “Shared visualisation. Tell me what to draw without telling me what it is.” She waits a few seconds before the slow, even breath ruffling her hair tells her that he’s fallen asleep.

 

 

 

It’s Amber who spots her when she exits Jongin’s room that morning, her own hair mussed and her body aching from falling asleep on the floor. She can still feel the warmth of Jongin’s back lingering on her own and somewhere in the middle of the night he had actually dragged the blanket down over the both of them (The idiot, she thinks. He could have dragged them up to the bed instead). She’s still thinking about how soft Jongin’s hair is when she finds her path blocked. She looks up. Amber’s grin is Cheshire Cat-like.

“Soooo, what were we doing coming out of our resident co-pilot’s room at 8 in the morning, hmmmmm?” she announces a little too loudly, and Soojung tries hard to keep her nostrils from flaring.

“Nothing,” she says. “I just went in, okay?” She fixes her ex co-pilot with a squint. “Don’t you try and insinuate anything, Amber Liu.”

Amber laughs, showing even white teeth. “Mussed hair, dishevelled clothes, bleary eyes. That is not the sign of someone who woke up in their own room, Jung Soojung. You’d better not let the Marshall find out,” she winks.

“I said nothing happened,” Soojung snaps. “Don’t you have some simulation training to do?”

Amber doesn’t stop grinning even as she walks away. “Nice to hear you yelling at me again, Soojung!” she yells down the corridor, then waves and disappears. Soojung goes into her own room, inspects her red cheeks in her mirror, then bangs her forehead against it.

“I can let him in, can’t I?” she asks her reflection.

 

 

 

 


	4. brittle bones and bruised skin

 

 

 **2019, FEBRUARY 23. INCHEON SHATTERDOME.**  
Soojung shows up at the Shatterdome a week after the funeral, and nobody believes it.

“What the hell are you doing here?” Jinri catches her arm as she exits the helicopter, leading her into the building. “You’re supposed to be at home! You’re not supposed to be here!”

“This is my home,” Soojung tells her. But one glance at the familiar concrete sends a stab through her heart, makes her want to burst into tears and feel her sister’s arms around her one last time.

“Go back, Soojung,” Jinri gives her a push. “This isn’t right. You need time to heal. There’s no way you can work like this.” Soojung ignores her and marches right into mission control, where Marshall Song turns around, mild surprise written on her face. Behind her, Yixing looks downright dumbfounded.

“Miss Jung?” Victoria steps towards her. She sounds the same as always, but her eyes are kind. Soojung doesn’t really want to see it. “What are you doing here? Your leave isn’t up until the end of this month, is there something -.”

“Marshall,” Soojung bows. “Please find me a new co-pilot. I’m ready to get back to work.”

A shocked silence falls over the room. Soojung remains bent over.

“I don’t think that’s a wise move, Ranger,” Victoria starts, and Soojung raises her head. “You’ve just lost someone close to you, I don’t blame you if you want more time to compose yourself. I will not let you back into that cockpit until you are cleared by the Psych Analyst as fit for work. Until then, please rest.” She clasps her hands behind her back and turns away slightly.

“Marshall!” Soojung cries out, and Jinri jumps. Victoria turns back, looking taken aback. “I’m ready. I know I’m ready. I’m not going to waste any more time mourning, I’ve had 10 months to do that! Please let me back into Artemis!”

“Soojung…” Yixing starts.

“I promised my sister I’ll live,” Soojung grits her teeth, clenches her hands into fists. “I promised her I would stand up and live, and that is exactly what I’m going to do.”

Victoria observes her silently for a few seconds before pinching the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes. “Alright,” she says heavily. “I will start the preparations. Just don’t make me regret this, Soojung,” she fixes her with a steely look before turning back around. Yixing shoots her a thumbs up and a special smile at Jinri before turning around as well.

“Hey, she called you Soojung,” Jinri whispers in her ear as Soojung watches the Marshall’s back, relief flooding through her. “She must really like you.”

Later when Soojung is back in the room she used to share with her sister, a fine layer of dust scattered over all their possessions and the ghost of Sooyeon still hanging in the air, she sinks down on to the floor and weeps like she’s lost something all over again.

 

 

 

**2022, OCTOBER 28. INCHEON SHATTERDOME MESS HALL.**  
“Can I talk to you?” she asks Yixing a few days later when she spots him in the mess hall. He looks up in the middle of his jjajangmyun (she indicates that he has sauce in the corner of his mouth), and beckons to the seat opposite him. She sets her tray down, and spots Jongin watching her some tables away. He nods. She looks away.

(“Step 2 in the healing process,” Jonghyun announces, tapping his pen against the table. “Acceptance.”

“But I’ve already accepted Myungsoo’s death,” she protests. She’d accepted it the second she felt him die, when she knew he wasn’t coming back. She knew that.

“This isn’t about Myungsoo,” Jonghyun adjusts his glasses and coughs. “It’s about Jinri.”)

“What’s up?” Yixing takes a drag of water. “If you’re wanting the recipe to my bubble tea you’re not getting it. That secret will go down to the grave with me.” He smiles lightly.

“It’s my fault Jinri died,” she blurts out. His smile drops. “If I… if me and Myungsoo… if we hadn’t been so careless she wouldn’t have been in that position, she wouldn’t have tried to help us…” Yixing doesn’t say anything, his back straight and his elbows resting on the table, but his silence is stifling. “It was my fault,” she manages. “And you know that. So why are you always so nice to me?”

Minutes pass. Finally, Yixing toys with his chopsticks, lining them up perfectly on top of his bowl. “I’m nice to you because it wasn’t all your fault,” he says quietly. “Sure, you guys were careless. But Jinri was careless too. She wasn’t supposed to be there, you know. She disobeyed orders and she knew better than to stay when Atticon got back up. But she stayed. She stayed to help you.” He folds his arms on the table and leans forward. “She was a PPDC fighter pilot. That was her job. They kept screaming at her to get out of there but she absolutely refused. I’m proud of what she did that day, Soojung. I’m so proud.”

Soojung doesn’t know what to say. There is no trace of shame or anger in Yixing’s eyes “But you told me to look out for her,” she mumbles. “And I didn’t.”

“I was an idiot for thinking anyone could look out for Choi Jinri,” he smiles. “She was always the one who looked out for everyone. And she was true to herself to the very end. That was what I loved most about her, I think. She gave up her life to save yours and a million others.”

“But you declared me unstable,” Soojung whispers. “You told me to stand down. Weren’t you angry?”

“That was Myungsoo’s decision,” Yixing replies. “He was the one who decided you were too unstable to keep fighting, and the readings backed it up. I called the final shot, but I wasn’t mad. I couldn’t feel anything. You know what it’s like, don’t you, to have your heart ripped right out of your chest? You stop feeling and just go into autopilot. That’s what I was like.”

She knows very well what it feels like.

“I don’t blame you, Soojung. I’ve never really blamed you.”

“Yixing, I… thank you.” she stares down at her bowl. Relief doesn’t cut it, but something in her chest feels lighter. Like a burden she didn’t know she was carrying has lifted from her shoulders, and she can breathe a little easier. “Jinri loved you, you know,” she tells him.

He picks up his chopsticks. “I know,” he says simply. “Now hurry up and eat, your food’s gone cold.”

 

 

 

“So how did it go?” Jongin asks later in the safety of the meditation room. “Did he let it all out? He looked pretty intense.”

Soojung thinks it over. “I feel a lot lighter now,” she admits.

Jongin nods. “Acceptance,” he says. “Not for you, but for Yixing. For you it was forgiveness.”

“From Yixing?” Soojung sets the paper and pen down.

“No,” he shakes his head. “From yourself.”

 

 

 

 

 **2019, FEBRUARY 7. SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL, ROOM 506.**  
Sooyeon runs the highest fever that night, and her skin burns Soojung’s hand when she grasps her wrist. Soojung yells for doctors, is about to press the call button beside Sooyeon’s bed when her sister grabs at her with her other hand.

“No,” she commands. Her tone is strong, firm, despite her hoarse voice. Soojung freezes. Sooyeon hasn’t spoken for a month. One month. She feels a dam burst in her chest. Has it already been one month? “No, don’t... call them.”

“You need help,” Soojung insists.

“No, don’t,” Sooyeon’s grip on her is strong, so strong, and she pulls Soojung to sit on the bed beside her. “Don’t let them give me anymore drugs. I don’t want them. I don’t want them anymore.”

Soojung’s heart is breaking and she can’t keep her eyes from misting up as Sooyeon puts one hand behind her head and pulls her into her chest. She can feel nothing but bones beneath Sooyeon’s blanket and her thin pyjamas, but more than anything she can feel Sooyeon’s battered heart beating fast and hard through her bruised ribcage, can feel the tubes snaking out of her sister’s broken body into plastic IV drips hanging on stands. She buries her head in her sister’s chest, closes her eyes. Tries to memorize the rhythm of Sooyeon’s pulse.

“I’m sorry I dragged you into this,” Sooyeon whispers into her hair. Her voice is already fading, already a shadow of what it had been just a few moments before. Soojung feels her own skin burning with her heat, but she clings on tighter. Sooyeon strokes her head, just like she used to do when they were younger, before they knew what sadness felt like, before a Kaiju stormed into Seoul and destroyed everything they knew. “I know this was never what you wanted. I’m sorry that I got you caught up in a dream that was really only meant for me.”

Soojung shakes her head, burrowing harder into her, but doesn’t say anything. What can you say when everything your dying sister is saying is utterly and completely true?

“Don’t go,” she whispers. Her voice breaks.

“You’re strong,” Sooyeon’s breath is shallower now, more breathy. Soojung clings on tighter. “I’m going to have to ask you to do one more thing for me, Soojung.” Don’t go.

“I love you,” Soojung weeps.

“Live.” Sooyeon puts her arms around her. “Stand up and live.” Don’t go.

“Unnie,” she says. Sooyeon’s heartbeat is fainter. She straightens up, looks down at her sister. She looks back with a clarity she hasn’t seen in 10 months, since the doctors sat them down and explained what was happening while Soojung burst into tears.

“Promise me.”

“I promise,” she sobs.

“Just remember,” Sooyeon lifts a hand and strokes her cheek. “You will always find me in the Drift.” And she pulls her back down into her and hugs her so hard that Soojung is afraid her sister’s bones will break. “I love you,” Sooyeon whispers.

Soojung closes her eyes and counts Sooyeon’s pulse for the last time.

 

 

 

 

 **2020, NOVEMBER 6. ANCHORAGE SHATTERDOME.**  
_Artemis Fury report to Bay 3, level A-43._

Soojung turns to stare at Jongin as the sirens being wailing. They’d arrived in Anchorage with Artemis Fury to oversee some upgrades to their Jaeger just a few days ago, and this is the last thing she wants to hear when they’re in unfamiliar territory without their usual team to back them up. She’s especially unsure about this mission when she and Jongin still don’t trust each other 100%. Sure, they’re getting a lot more comfortable around each other, but the niggling doubt she has at the back of her head never seems to go away.

Jongin puts down his ping pong paddle. “Crunch time,” he says. He doesn’t smile. They run.

 

 

 

“Coyote Tango has been destroyed,” Tendo Choi, Anchorage’s Chief LOCCENT Officer tells them as they’re airlifted out of the Shatterdome. “We’re sending you out to St Lawrence Island to finish it off. You guys are the only ones available here right now, sorry for the short notice.”

“It’s no problem,” Jongin replies. Soojung wants to ask about Beowulf Luna, Sehun’s Jaeger, then realizes that she hasn’t seen Sehun since arriving and decides not to say anything. “His accent is kinda weird, huh?” Jongin asks in Korean when they cut the connection.

“I could say the same about yours,” Soojung smirks.

Jongin rolls his eyes. “I speak another language so that already makes me somewhat of a genius.”

“If you’re a genius Amber must be Einstein then.”

“Haha,” Jongin says without laughing. They lapse back into silence, watching the land roll out beneath their feet. “Hey Soojung,” he says suddenly. She looks at him. “Promise you won’t let me fall.”

Soojung feels all the breath leave her lungs. “I promise.”

 

 

 

 

 **2019, JANUARY 4. **SEOUL NATIONAL UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL.****  
“Her condition’s deteriorating. I’m sorry to tell you this, Miss Jung, but there is a strong chance that she might not make it through this.”

Soojung tells herself that she knew this was coming. She thinks she’s ready. “How long.”

“Miss Jung, I can assure you that we’re going to try every -.”

“How long.”

The doctor checks herself. Soojung’s gaze is dead. “One month.”

One month. Soojung sits on a plastic chair just beside the receptionist’s desk and stares at nothing. She isn’t ready.

 

 

 

Sooyeon can barely ask for water anymore. She lifts a weak hand and waves it limply for a few seconds before letting it fall back against her blanket. Soojung knows what she means anyway, and pours a glass. She and Sooyeon have always known what the other was thinking, mind melded or not. One month. And then who will save her bibimbap when she’s too busy working out to get it herself? Who will tell her off when she isn’t taking things seriously?

Sooyeon lost all her hair 5 months into chemo. She always had beautiful hair, soft and silky and thick where Soojung’s was thin and limp. Her sister looks like a different person now, but Soojung can still see Sooyeon’s smile in her protruding cheekbones, can still see her strength in her sunken eyes. Soojung never had that strength; she’d always just rode on the coattails of Sooyeon’s.

Sooyeon first started getting nose bleeds back in March. In April she collapsed during a simulation. By May she was admitted into the cancer department of SNUH, and Soojung went with her. She was there when Sooyeon spent the night retching after her first dose of chemo, and she was there when Sooyeon woke up screaming in the middle of the night from nightmares in the form of a giant monster stomping past their apartment window and finding their parent’s mangled bodies in the street the very next day.

Radiation sickness. Chronic myeloid leukemia. Soojung let them take her stem cells. She let them take bone marrow. She let them take blood. She let them take anything from her body if it meant compensating for Sooyeon’s weak one. If it meant keeping her sister alive for a while longer.

For a while prospects looked good, and then Sooyeon relapsed. The leukemia had morphed into stomach cancer, then liver. She lost half her stomach and had to be fed through a tube. Soojung asked if they had kimchi flavoured liquid. The nurses looked at her like she was crazy.

Jinri still drops by on her off days to sit beside Soojung and tell hilarious and inappropriate stories to both her and her sister, and Soojung appreciates having someone around to lighten the mood, that there is someone that can still make Sooyeon laugh even though it hurts.

Sooyeon never tells her it hurts, but she sees it every time her sister’s eyebrows crease just a little bit in the middle whenever she moves. Creased eyebrows mean pain. A wrinkled nose mean amusement. Soojung knows what every little change in Sooyeon’s face means. There was a reason they had 4 solo kills in the short 2 years they fought side by side.

Jonghyun comes as well, always with a fresh bouquet of flowers that brightens up the room. Soojung excuses herself every time. She’s always found it a little weird to see Jonghyun outside of the Shatterdome, and she’s never liked the thought of having to share Sooyeon with someone else, even if they get along relatively well. She sits in the plastic chair beside the receptionist and stares at the wall. She tells herself that this is practice for what it would feel like when Sooyeon finally leaves her.

 

 

 

 

 

 **2020, NOVEMBER 6. ST LAWRENCE ISLAND.**  
Crunch time.

She can see the remains of Coyote Tango floating just out beyond the miracle mile. She doesn’t know why it looks so strange until she realizes that it is headless. Jongin reminds her to clear her mind and focus, and she stops looking. She can’t do anything to save the Tunari brothers anymore, but she can helps avenge their deaths for them.

“That’s the right attitude,” Jongin encourages. “Now where the hell is that bastard.”

It jumps them at the 10 mile mark, with barely a dent in it. It has a hard protective armor on its back, almost like a turtle, and Soojung sidesteps it before it can lunge at them again.

“We should go full throttle!” Jongin yells as the Kaiju punches them in the middle and sends them flying. “It has full blown defense so we should hit it with everything we’ve got!”

“We’re too close to the island!” Soojung argues as they pick themselves up. “We can’t risk it!”

The Kaiju disappears into the water and slams into their legs so hard that they fall back in. It pounds on their head, shaking them violently inside. “Then get the sword!” Jongin looks up at the small crack on the hull, and Soojung remembers what happened the last time that hull cracked, when she lost another boy with eyes like the sun.

“Artemis, you’ve hit the 8 mile mark!” Tendo relays. “Don’t let it get any closer!”

She and Jongin send an uppercut to the Kaiju’s chin as it pounds down on them again, managing to push it off them and send it flying backwards into the ocean. “You can’t be scared anymore, Soojung!” Jongin cries out. “Your fear only made you weak! Your fear was the reason you lost so many people after Sooyeon! Don’t let it control you!”

She remembers Myungsoo yelling at her for the sword, and her refusal. How it got him killed. How her second-too-late decision to use the cannon got Jinri killed. Jongin is right. She won’t let anyone else die because of her insecurity.

“Okay!” she yells as the Kaiju jumps on them and digs its claws into their face, causing the crack to split open into a hole. _Plasma cannon loading_. “Just hold on, Jongin!” she yells. The Kaiju suddenly smacks at them like swatting at a fly, and something in their arm shifts.

 _Plasma cannon disconnected_ , says the AI. Jongin swears, and they throw the Kaiju off them. Soojung unsheathes the sword as they brace themselves.

“I thought those bloody technicians fixed it up,” Jongin growls. “I’m going to go check the circuits, don’t engage in a fight,” he tells her, stepping out of his harness before she can stop it.

“Wait, Jongin, don’t disengage!” she yells, and then the Kaiju slams into them. Jongin flies into the side of the Conn Pod, and she can see blood on the side of his head as he hits the floor. The Kaiju punches them in the side of the face again, and she hears his yell before he disappears through the hole in the hull.

“JONGIN!” she screams. He’s still there, managed to latch himself on to Artemis’ shoulder. They’re still connected. The neural bridge is still strong and holding. She feels a renewed strength flow through her. “You won’t take another one from me!” she cries out as the Kaiju runs at her.

And that’s when she feels Jongin fall.

She sees the churning water, sees nothing but inky darkness. She’s seen this scene so many times in her nightmares, in her dreams. _Promise you won’t let me fall, Soojung_. “I promised!” she yells. “And that’s exactly what I’m going to do!” She spies Artemis’ right leg through Jongin’s eyes, and she knows exactly where he is. His suit’s homing device is still blinking on her screen. She punches the Kaiju in the face, then bends over and cups her hand.

She sees the broken hull of the Jaeger looking at her, feels the cold metal under her skin before Jongin passes out on her hand. She has him. Relief floods through her. She has him.

 _Live_ , says Sooyeon.

 _Kick its ass!_ yells Jinri.

 _You can do this_ , Myungsoo smiles.

The Kaiju rears up and charges at her, and with Jongin in one hand and a sword in the other, she braces herself. As it takes a running jump and throws itself at her, its own momentum drives the sword straight through its heart.

The Kaiju screams, a terrible shrill scream that echoes into the night, and then it slumps against her. She’s won.

Sooyeon is stroking her hair. Jinri is jumping up and down around her, laughing. Myungsoo is holding her hand. Maybe she’s hallucinating, she thinks, as blood spatters her suit. The Drift doesn’t create new memories. But she feels them all the same, the memories of the people she loves imprinting themselves into her skin forever.

She still doesn’t have a reason to do this, to pilot a Jaeger that killed her sister, to face demons of the deep that killed her best friend and her lover. But she feels at peace with herself as she makes it to the island and manages to lower Jongin on to the beach before collapsing.

 

 

 

 


	5. let's go save the world

 

 

 **2016, FEBRUARY 28. SEOUL, SOUTH KOREA.**  
Soojung comes homes to find Sooyeon packing. “Where are you going?” she cries out as Sooyeon rushes around in a frenzy, grabbing items at random, looking at them, tossing them to one side. “What’s happening? Sooyeon!” She jumps at her, throws her on to the bed and sits on her stomach, anchoring her wrists to the bed so she won’t escape. “What the hell are you doing?!”

“Remember what I said that day when we lost mum and dad?” Sooyeon stares back at her, chest heaving. Soojung sees the stone cold determination in her eyes, that same determination that gave her sister so little friends when she was still in school, that earned her the nickname of Ice Princess.

“You said you’d never let anything happen to me,” Soojung mumbles. She tries hard not to relive that day two months ago, the day Imugi emerged from the East China Sea and destroyed everything she had ever known.

“Remember what I said about the Shatterdome in Hong Kong? That the Jaeger Academies are open?”

Soojung recalls hazy details of the Jaeger that took down Imugi, slashed its head right off its shoulders where it landed solidly in the middle of the Dongdaemun Design Plaza and leaked Kaiju Blue out of its neck for days. Some people never recovered. Soojung sometimes thinks out loud that it was the Jaeger that killed them. Sooyeon counters her every time. “Shatterdomes,” she mumbles instead. “That place where they breed murderers.”

Sooyeon eyes her fixedly. “If it weren’t for the Jaeger Program, Seoul wouldn’t even be here anymore and we wouldn’t be having this conversation,” she says firmly. “But that’s not the point. I said I’d protect you and I will. I’m going to America. I’m joining the academy. I’m going to be a Jaeger pilot.”

The shock is enough for Soojung to relax her grip on her sister, whereupon Sooyeon promptly flips her over and leaps lithely off the bed. Soojung lies where she’s been pushed, a million thoughts swirling through her brain.

“But,” starts Soojung, still lying on the bed as Sooyeon starts tearing around the room again.

“No buts,” Sooyeon holds up a finger. “I’ve made up my mind.”

“Sooyeon…”

“I said I’ve made up my mind.”

“But –,” Soojung sits up.

“Soojung, I said -.”

“You can’t protect me if you’re not here!” Soojung yells, squeezing her eyes shut and pounding her fist into the pillow. The bed springs squeak. Sooyeon pauses, puts down the picture frame she’s holding. Soojung watches her purse her lips, watches her run her tongue over her teeth. Her sister’s habits are second nature to her now, and she can read meaning into every little movement Sooyeon makes. She knows her sister enough to know this: she’s terrified.

“I can protect you if I’m in a Jaeger,” Sooyeon finally breaks the silence. “You and a hundred thousand other people. What threat am I to a Kaiju that can squish me like a bug under its feet when I can look it in the eye and have skin made of steel and bones that won’t break?” Her voice is disjointed, like she’s already gone.

“Take me with you,” Soojung says. “I’m old enough. I know I am. Take me with you. Besides,” she adds quickly as Sooyeon opens her mouth to say something. “Wouldn’t you feel better knowing you could be a Jaeger pilot and still be able to keep an eye on your beloved younger sister?”

Sooyeon closes her mouth, looks pensive for a moment, sighs, then grins slightly. “When you put it like that…” She scratches her eyebrow, shakes her head. “I really wasn’t going to ask you to come along, but… if you insist…” She puts her hand in her jacket pocket and waves two slips at Soojung, grinning like a Cheshire Cat. “Pack your things. Our flight is in 6 hours.”

And when Soojung stares dumbfoundedly at her, her sister only laughs and walks back to the bed, her hands on her hips as she looks down at her. They share a look, and then Sooyeon reaches out and ruffles Soojung’s hair before stepping away and extending a hand towards her.

“Come on,” she says gently. “Let’s go save the world.”

Soojung takes it.

 

 

 

 

 **2022, NOVEMBER 7. INCHEON SHATTERDOME INFIRMARY.**  
Jongin wakes up in a hospital bed with a splitting headache and the memory of Myungsoo, Jinri and Sooyeon’s faces swirling through his mind. Soojung is sitting next to him in a chair, head bowed and face covered with long, dark hair. She’s still in her drivesuit, there’s still blood on her temple. Jongin tries to move: everything comes flooding back.

“Soojung,” he manages in a hoarse whisper. It’s enough. She stirs, lifts her head, looks at him. Her eyebags are more pronounced than ever and she looks positively exhausted, but after battling 2 Kaiju in the span of just 2 months, Jongin thinks she’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever laid eyes on.

“Hey,” she whispers, and she smiles. His heart aches more than his head.

Jongin pushes himself up in bed, and she gets up to bend over him. “Hey,” he manages back, then puts his hand in her hair, pulls her down to him and presses his forehead against hers. She doesn’t push away. Her own fingers are pressed to his chest, tangled in his torn and tattered circuitry suit. They breathe together, slowly, silently, reminding each other that they’re alive. “Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” he manages a grin when he pulls away despite the bruises on his bones, the sutures on his skin.

Her gaze is softer now when she extends a hand towards him, open palmed. She’s still smiling. “Come on,” she says. “Let’s go save the world.”

Jongin takes it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


End file.
